Naked Science Forum

On the Lighter Side => New Theories => Topic started by: larens on 05/04/2020 18:40:00

Title: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 05/04/2020 18:40:00
The Rare Earth hypothesis should be the default position to explore given the Fermi Paradox and the fact that we have not found any signs of life elsewhere in the universe. We should thus form an inverse Drake equation, and look for a set of highly improbable facts about the Solar system. Given the difficulty of life originating in an environment thermodynamically far downhill from the conditions in cells, we should be looking for an early environment with highly energetic molecules and kinetics that leads to the biochemistry we see. This requires a highly improbable event, i.e., an intense gamma ray burst from a neutron star merger.

The second improbable fact is that the Solar system is on the boundary of chaos, because of the asteroids Ceres and Vesta. From geology Ceres appears to have come from the outer Solar system and Vesta from the inner. Their orbits nearly intersect so they can have captured each other into their current positions in the main asteroid belt. The moons of Mars are strong evidence for this capture process. One is retreating from Mars synchronous orbit and the other descending.  Their spectra correspond to a mixture of ejecta from Mars and material with a high organic content. This is indicative of Vesta having had a satellite with organic material that was disrupted in a close encounter with Mars. This encounter would have been necessary to project Vesta into its current position. Vesta presumably was originally in a resonance with Earth that allowed it to reside for a long enough time in a temperature zone conducive to the origin of life. The unusually large crater on Vesta may have been caused by a collision with a piece of its former satellite. A band of hydrated clay on Vesta is incompatible with its otherwise igneous surface. Because Vesta has a short rotation period, a tidally locked satellite would have readily formed a ring. Besides leading to the band of clay this ring would have been important in the harvesting of chemicals for life on the satellite.

The third improbable fact is that  just before the Solar system started a supernova created radioactive isotopes that heated asteroids to the point of creating liquid water in them that allowed the processing of the chemicals necessary for life.

The final improbable fact is that the Solar system is very regular, so life once created is not destroyed by asteroidal impacts.

This lays out the basic evidence for this scenario. I will go into the specific biochemistry in future replies. For the moment please address the basic scenario. Virgins to posting are particularly welcome. This forum has had too many lurkers to make for good discussion.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 05/04/2020 18:53:25
Vesta presumably was originally in a resonance with Earth that allowed it to reside for a long enough time in a temperature zone conducive to the origin of life.

Merely being at Earth's orbit is insufficient in itself to create the temperatures needed for life. Any satellite of Vesta must have been very small and thus incapable of holding any substantial atmosphere. In this respect, it would be expected to experience temperature swings like that of the Moon (which is also at the Earth's orbit). This combination of a lack of surface pressure and temperature extremes from 100 kelvins to 390 kelvins would preclude the existence of liquid water on its surface and thus it would be a poor candidate for the development of life.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 05/04/2020 19:56:06
This combination of a lack of surface pressure and temperature extremes from 100 kelvins to 390 kelvins would preclude the existence of liquid water on its surface and thus it would be a poor candidate for the development of life.

I said that the location was in a "warm spring". This would mostly be at the average temperature or higher. Extremes in temperature are necessary to drive the purification of solvents, reagents, and biochemicals, e.g., by the fractional freezing of aqueous solutions. Formamide is an important secondary solvent. It is more polar than water and freezes at about the same temperature. Swings to a much lower temperature are necessary to generate a slowly alternating electric potential to purify by electrophoresis. The ferroelectric transition temperature of ammonium sulfate is 224 Kelvin. There would be organic materials available to seal against the vacuum.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 05/04/2020 20:07:49
I said that the location was in a "warm spring".

You might as well posit that warm spring as being on Earth then, rather than on some object that we don't know even existed.

Extremes in temperature are necessary to drive the purification of solvents, reagents, and biochemicals, e.g., by the fractional freezing of aqueous solutions. Formamide is an important secondary solvent. It is more polar than water and freezes at about the same temperature. Swings to a much lower temperature are necessary to generate a slowly alternating electric potential to purify by electrophoresis.

We don't know the conditions necessary for the formation of life. As such, we don't know if these processes you speak of are needed. Alternatively, freezing and thawing can easily occur in some locations on Earth when the seasons change.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 05/04/2020 20:38:35

You might as well posit that warm spring as being on Earth then, rather than on some object that we don't know even existed.

The Earth is a hostile environment for the formation of life, because of the abundance of water. Without a sophisticated cellular membrane biochemicals are rapidly diluted. The necessary high energy molecules are also rapidly destroyed.



We don't know the conditions necessary for the formation of life.

We know a lot about these conditions. Unless we resort to vitalism, they have to lead to the formation of life by mostly known physics, chemistry, and biology.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 05/04/2020 20:44:45
The Earth is a hostile environment for the formation of life, because of the abundance of water. Without a sophisticated cellular membrane biochemicals are rapidly diluted. The necessary high energy molecules are also rapidly destroyed.

So what's the difference between a warm spring on a hypothetical satellite of Vesta and a warm spring on Earth? Moreover, why assume that it was on a satellite of Vesta? Why not on one of the other countless asteroids in the asteroid belt?

Unless we resort to vitalism, they have to lead to the formation of life by mostly known physics, chemistry, and biology.

And you think those conditions would necessarily be unique to a heavenly body that we don't even know existed?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 05/04/2020 21:24:16

So what's the difference between a warm spring on a hypothetical satellite of Vesta and a warm spring on Earth? Moreover, why assume that it was on a satellite of Vesta? Why not on one of the other countless asteroids in the asteroid belt?


The difference is between being in a friendly environment and being in a hostile environment.

No other body in the Solar system is supported by as much evidence as I gave for the hypothetical satellite of Vesta. This subsidiary hypothesis is mandated by needing a simple and consistent solution for the larger hypothesis that life originated by natural processes.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 05/04/2020 22:14:51
The difference is between being in a friendly environment and being in a hostile environment.

What makes a warm spring on that satellite more friendly to life than a warm spring on Earth?

No other body in the Solar system is supported by as much evidence as I gave for the hypothetical satellite of Vesta.

Seriously? You think there we have more evidence for the existence of Vesta's satellite than we have for Earth, the Sun, Mars, etc?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 05/04/2020 22:46:38

What makes a warm spring on that satellite more friendly to life than a warm spring on Earth?

The context was friendly for the origin of life - for the reasons I gave.

Seriously? You think there we have more evidence for the existence of Vesta's satellite than we have for Earth, the Sun, Mars, etc?

The context was existence as a location for the origin of life - also for the reasons I gave.


Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 05/04/2020 22:49:51
The context was friendly for the origin of life - for the reasons I gave.

Those same conditions can exist in springs on Earth.

The context was existence as a location for the origin of life - also for the reasons I gave.

Which goes back to what I was saying about any number of other asteroids being just as good a candidate.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 05/04/2020 23:28:26
Those same conditions can exist in springs on Earth.


Which goes back to what I was saying about any number of other asteroids being just as good a candidate.

Instead of just repeating yourself, go back to my OP and reply #2 to see the conditions I laid out.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 05/04/2020 23:42:11
Instead of just repeating yourself, go back to my OP and reply #2 to see the conditions I laid out.

You don't know that those conditions you specified are capable of producing life, nor do you know that alternative conditions can't also produce life. Regardless, formamide and ammonium sulfate could have existed on the prebiotic Earth as well. There are locations on the Earth even today where the ferroelectric temperature you speak of can be reached. So again, your arguments do not preclude life from forming on Earth.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 06/04/2020 00:07:39

You don't know that those conditions you specified are capable of producing life, nor do you know that alternative conditions can't also produce life. Regardless, formamide and ammonium sulfate could have existed on the prebiotic Earth as well. There are locations on the Earth even today where the ferroelectric temperature you speak of can be reached. So again, your arguments do not preclude life from forming on Earth.

The first phrase in my OP says that I am presenting an hypothesis. I am not precluding life forming on the Earth. I am also not going to hold my breathe until someone produces a coherent theory about the origin of life on the prebiotic Earth using the substances you mentioned.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 06/04/2020 00:11:19
The first phrase in my OP says that I am presenting an hypothesis.

Fair enough.

I'm more confused as to why you are trying to point to one particular object in the asteroid belt (and one that we don't know ever existed at that). Why would it be so uniquely suited for the development of life when compared to other asteroids?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 06/04/2020 00:55:37
I'm more confused as to why you are trying to point to one particular object in the asteroid belt (and one that we don't know ever existed at that). Why would it be so uniquely suited for the development of life when compared to other asteroids?

There is only one important reason one cannot get from my OP and reply #2. I did not mention that my hypothesis includes the idea that the warm spring was on the face of the satellite directly facing Vesta. The large frequent eclipses of the Sun were good for driving the temperature fluctuations necessary to the system. The satellite was near the Roche limit. As I mentioned the resulting ring allows for good interaction with the larger environment. Vesta is the second most massive asteroid and would have been a good source of sulfur dioxide.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 06/04/2020 03:47:50
Vesta is the second most massive asteroid and would have been a good source of sulfur dioxide.

Vesta was large enough to melt and outgas sulfur dioxide. This was important to form large amounts of ferroelectric ammonium sulfate to create electric potentials that can form the polypeptides that we see in biology. These are generally on the boundary between conduction and nonconduction. They can thus act as field effect transistors and guide other reactions.

Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and formaldehyde (CH2O) are the two most important molecules formed by radiation energetic enough to split diatomic molecules. They are abundant in the nebula around very hot stars and would be created in much higher concentrations by the intense radiation from a neutron star merger. HCN combines with water to form formamide ((NH2)CHO). It can also combine with itself to form the bases for RNA and DNA, e.g., adenine (C5H5N5). Formaldehyde readily and reversibly polymerizes to polyoxymethylene. With borate as a catalyst the reaction forms ribose (C5H10O5) for  RNA and DNA. This proceeds particularly well with formamide as the solvent. The reaction of nickel phosphide (abundant in iron/nickel meteorites) with water yields activated phosphates for ATP (and RNA, and DNA).
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: puppypower on 06/04/2020 12:00:33
In the Miller-Urey Experiments of the 1950's they used an electric arc to create the high energy molecular states needed to form amino acids and many other compounds, from the simple gases that were assumed to be present on the early earth. The compounds that formed included very complex hydrocarbons that one would swear came from fossil fuel deposits. It is possible much of the fossil fuel we assume came from life, came before life, but was infiltrated later by life. Miller was able to form complex tars suitable for coal formation. 

When you have a lot of water; oceans, and a hot summer day, you can get hurricanes and thunderstorms which produce lightning within the gases of the atmosphere. The Miller experiments were simulating lighting in gases, and made many of the precursors needed for life.

The Miller experiment and variations thereof, could start with a reduced or oxidized atmosphere and still make amino acids, as long as water molecules were part of the reaction. Water makes lighting to create activation energy, so other water molecules can combine, with various combinations of gases; ammonia NH3 to nitrogen N2 to form the precursors of life. Water is the swiss army knife of chemistry.

Going from amino acids to protein is more complicated, since the polymerization of amino acids into protein will give off water molecules. If the amino acids are initially dissolved in water, the bulk water will inhibit the formation of protein, since the surplus of water makes it harder for the amino acids to kick off water and polymerize.

Experiments, that did successfully make protein, used the opposite or dehydration of amino acids in clay. This suggests life beginning between land and sea; thunderstorms, dehydration at low tide, and tidal mixing at high tide. Water has many jobs.

The way water helps with assembly of smaller organic things into even larger precursors is connected to the water-oil affect. If we mix water and oil, and let it settle, the water and oil will separate into two phases. Water and oil can spontaneously go from disorder to order. The mixing of water and organics creates surface tension; tides. The phase separation lowers this tension; lowers potential. As complex organics appear in water, and the tides mix the water and organics, water and organics will phase separate out at low tide, into order; simple organelles.

As a home experiment mix spices, water and olive oil, shake and allow to settle. All the organic flavor will end up in the oil, which will separate from the water. The water-oil affect is one of the better tools in the swiss army knife called water.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 06/04/2020 13:54:50
They are abundant in the nebula around very hot stars and would be created in much higher concentrations by the intense radiation from a neutron star merger.
Actually, they would be destroyed in those conditions.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 06/04/2020 16:05:24
As complex organics appear in water, and the tides mix the water and organics, water and organics will phase separate out at low tide, into order; simple organelles.



Organelles are greatly more complex than simple mixtures of phases. Vigorously mixing things with water is a good way of rapidly increasing entropy. In general the processes you mention create gunk. On Earth there were not effective enough ways, e.g., electrophoresis to separate mixtures of chemicals into relatively pure components that can serve as building blocks for life.


Actually, they would be destroyed in those conditions.



Diatomic molecules in the initial Solar nebula are destroyed. Significant amounts of HCN and CH2O are formed when the atoms recombine.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 08/04/2020 02:07:11



Formaldehyde readily and reversibly polymerizes to polyoxymethylene



Polyoxymethylene chains joined with halloysite clay crystals to form the initial shaft and chain system that drove mechanochemistry in the initial form of life. Halloysite clay crystals are small hollow scrolls, which can serve as shafts and tubes. They grow by elongation, which when combined with fracturing into definite lengths can serve to replicate patterns.  Today cells depend on rotary motors driven by pH differences, These are the structural fossils of the initial system. The initial pH differences were between warm springs and their surrounding environment.

The cofactors of enzymes are chemical fossils that indicate the essential minerals in the initial system. We may infer that chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) was the initial catalyst and molybdenum disulfide served as shelving for storage. It crystalizes as 2-D layers that may easily be intercalated. Quartz crystals probably served as windows for primitive photosynthesis. The isotope ratios of graphite inclusions in zircons from very old rocks on Earth show that photosynthesis had been transferred to Earth by at least 4.1 billion years ago.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 10/04/2020 22:26:35
The Miller experiment and variations thereof, could start with a reduced or oxidized atmosphere and still make amino acids, as long as water molecules were part of the reaction. Water makes lighting to create activation energy, so other water molecules can combine, with various combinations of gases; ammonia NH3 to nitrogen N2 to form the precursors of life. Water is the swiss army knife of chemistry.


The Miller experiments require a reducing atmosphere, because the organic molecules produced are hydrogen rich. Your example ammonia NH3 has a 3:1 ratio of hydrogen to nitrogen. Lightning in an oxidizing atmosphere produces nitrates instead. The hydrogen in water will not serve to produce reduced molecules, because the hydrogen is tightly bound to oxygen.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 11/04/2020 18:26:12
My draft abstract submission for the Astrobiology Australasia Meeting 2020 supplies a nice summary for this topic so far, though I have included a few new ideas:


Why life on Earth probably originated on a former satellite of Vesta

Theories of life originating on Earth have so far failed to predict there being at least one Earth-like planet in the universe. I will present a model of life originating elsewhere in the Solar system that probably satisfies this constraint:  A binary neutron star merger occurred near the Solar nebula at just the right time, distance, and direction to create a high free energy environment. Chemistry thermodynamically downhill from this has been conserved in the basic biochemistry we see today. Heat from the decay of aluminum-26 created springs on a tidally locked satellite of Vesta, which was then between the Earth and Mars. A ring near the Roche limit harvested chemicals for the satellite. Temperature variation drove purification by partial freezing and ferroelectric driven electrophoresis. Cylindrical clay crystals had a structure conserved today in ATP synthase. Rotation and polyoxymethylene chains drove mechanochemistry. Elongation of the crystals with fracturing allowed the reproduction of chemical patterns. Conserved active sites of cofactors show what other minerals in the spring played key roles. After the development of cells lithopanspermia to Earth was easy and occurred repeatedly. Early photosynthesis on Earth explains the mild Hadean climate and the deposits of diamonds at the roots of cratons. A close encounter with Mars and encounters with Ceres transported Vesta to its current orbit. The moons of Mars are a mixture of ejecta from Mars and the remains of the satellite and ring. Jaxa's MMX mission includes returning a sample from there, so offers us an opportunity to closely examine the remains. This scenario provides a potential solution to the Fermi Paradox through the Unique Earth Hypothesis. The many factors of improbability in this scenario may lead to a probability of there being just one Earth-like planet per universe. The basic physics and chemistry though are relatively straight forward.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 09/05/2020 03:36:29
Heat from the decay of aluminum-26 created springs on a tidally locked satellite of Vesta, which was then between the Earth and Mars.

I replaced "transuranic isotopes" with "aluminum-26" because I realized that the former isotopes produced much less heat. Between the time aluminum-26 decay diminished and the time Mars crust hardened a natural nuclear reactor was able to keep the "springs' warm. These were really closed hydrological systems with desalinization by freezing. Once oxygen was formed by photosynthesis uranium was mobilized to form insoluble oxide deposits when reaching a reducing zone. This is the common way uranium ore is produced and created natural nuclear reactors as in Gabon in west Africa about 2 billion years ago. It was easier 4.5 billion years ago because the fissionable U-235 isotope was 25% of uranium, rather than 4% in Gabon and 0.72% today.

I am currently investigating the possibility that there is a different type of neutron star merger that produces such a dense, hot gamma ray burst than it produces mainly helium rather than heavy isotopes, This then could have produced a high concentration of HCN and CHOH in the solar nebula without producing more transuranic isotopes than are observed. This type of burst may be allowed under my theory of physics because it includes reverse causality. It may be paired with a conventional neutron star merger, such that, they bracket 1/3 the age of the universe. There is a carbon isotope anomaly peak at 1/25 of the age of the universe at the beginning of the Cambrian Explosion of animals. Along with 1/1 for the Big Bang these form a simple sequence for the top down determination of important ages. It would take some deeper math to show that this is really the case.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: puppypower on 09/05/2020 13:39:24
The Miller experiment and variations thereof, could start with a reduced or oxidized atmosphere and still make amino acids, as long as water molecules were part of the reaction. Water makes lighting to create activation energy, so other water molecules can combine, with various combinations of gases; ammonia NH3 to nitrogen N2 to form the precursors of life. Water is the swiss army knife of chemistry.


The Miller experiments require a reducing atmosphere, because the organic molecules produced are hydrogen rich. Your example ammonia NH3 has a 3:1 ratio of hydrogen to nitrogen. Lightning in an oxidizing atmosphere produces nitrates instead. The hydrogen in water will not serve to produce reduced molecules, because the hydrogen is tightly bound to oxygen.

Variations of the Miller Experiment, by other researchers that came later, showed that the reactions were very flexible and could occur with a range of oxidizing and reducing gases. Below is from Wikipedia; Miller Experiment, section called early earth atmosphere.

Quote
Originally it was thought that the primitive secondary atmosphere contained mostly ammonia and methane. However, it is likely that most of the atmospheric carbon was CO2 with perhaps some CO and the nitrogen mostly N2. In practice gas mixtures containing CO, CO2, N2, etc. give much the same products as those containing CH4 and NH3 so long as there is no O2. The hydrogen atoms come mostly from water vapor. In fact, in order to generate aromatic amino acids under primitive earth conditions it is necessary to use less hydrogen-rich gaseous mixtures. Most of the natural amino acids, hydroxyacids, purines, pyrimidines, and sugars have been made in variants of the Miller experiment.

The importance of water goes beyond the formation of precursors. The most important attribute of water is connected to the water-oil affect. If we agitate and mix water and oil, we will get a randomized mixture; emulsion. If we let the emulsion set, the random mixture will spontaneously form order as two layers. This is based on lowering the free energy of surface tension.The dice of random are loaded by water.

 Life is composed of mostly water and organic materials. The water-oil affect is at work, everywhere, forcing the organic mixtures into energetically favorable phases called finished protein strictures and organelles. This phase separation is critical to life. The lack of a theory for directed movement of materials, is the bottleneck, for the science of abiogenesis, They assume random connections, even though it is easy to demonstrate water forcing things to happen to organics based on its own energy benefit.

The accepted nonsense, about life forming in other solvents, has done a disservice to science. That premise has never been proven in the lab, but it is nevertheless treated like a proven dogma. To place this in context; we have never formed water based life in the lab, even though we know how all kinds of things about water based life. Life in other solvents, is where we know nothing. We can not even speculate the nature of the need genetic material.  Yer we are supposed to buy into the notion we have proof of how all the unknowns can form into life?

We are centuries away from the basic hard evidence for such life, before even beginning abiogenesis in other solvents  In spite of this total lack,  one is still required to conform to this unproven science, simply because a statistical oracle, stemming from the casinos of science, says it may have odds. Science can place a bet, and win a jackpot, if you are lucky. Fortune telling and gambling is not acceptable science. Proof used to be the standard, before the oracles were allowed. Oracles are why we are in the bronze age of science.   

In terms of the water-oil affect, if we substitute any other solvent for water, to create a solvent-oil affect, the impact on the random solvent on the organics of life will be different from water. You will not get the same drive into two distinct phases, from say ammonia, butane, ethanol, etc.. Rather, one will get a semi-stable emulsion since these are better organic solvents. These will be at the mercy of random events. I can see why the casinos of science like this, since it appears to be a game suited for a casino. The bookies will allow you to bet on ther solvents.

Water, on the other hand;  water-oil affect, creates sure things; like card counting. Casinos do not allow card counting, since they make more profit, from those who worship oracles and dice.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 09/05/2020 20:56:54
Variations of the Miller Experiment, by other researchers that came later, showed that the reactions were very flexible and could occur with a range of oxidizing and reducing gases. Below is from Wikipedia; Miller Experiment, section called early earth atmosphere.

Quote
Originally it was thought that the primitive secondary atmosphere contained mostly ammonia and methane. However, it is likely that most of the atmospheric carbon was CO2 with perhaps some CO and the nitrogen mostly N2. In practice gas mixtures containing CO, CO2, N2, etc. give much the same products as those containing CH4 and NH3 so long as there is no O2. The hydrogen atoms come mostly from water vapor. In fact, in order to generate aromatic amino acids under primitive earth conditions it is necessary to use less hydrogen-rich gaseous mixtures. Most of the natural amino acids, hydroxyacids, purines, pyrimidines, and sugars have been made in variants of the Miller experiment.

This is a example of where Wilkipedia fails. The citation leads to a university news site. The website of the author mentioned does not include this study in his publication list. This is probably because he used "chondritic" material and then realized that it came from further out in the Solar system and is too reducing. For an explanation of why the Earth was too oxidizing for Miller synthesis to work see: "The oxidation state of Hadean magmas and implications for early Earth’s atmosphere."  https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10655

Quote
Life is composed of mostly water and organic materials. The water-oil affect is at work, everywhere, forcing the organic mixtures into energetically favorable phases called finished protein strictures and organelles. This phase separation is critical to life. The lack of a theory for directed movement of materials, is the bottleneck, for the science of abiogenesis,

I agree that transport is the major bottleneck. Phase separation, however, is only a minor part of the problem. Initially Halloysite nanotubes formed a primitive plumbing system. This structure is conserved today in the microtubules of Eukaryotic cells. At a larger scale smoke in the Solar nebula absorbed critical chemicals and was guided by light pressure to the initial site of life.

Quote
The accepted nonsense, about life forming in other solvents, has done a disservice to science. That premise has never been proven in the lab, but it is nevertheless treated like a proven dogma. To place this in context; we have never formed water based life in the lab, even though we know how all kinds of things about water based life. Life in other solvents, is where we know nothing. We can not even speculate the nature of the need genetic material.  Yer we are supposed to buy into the notion we have proof of how all the unknowns can form into life?

It is well known known from laboratory experiments that mixing formamide and water in different proportions allow different biological steps to take place, e.g., the combination and separation of strands of RNA. These mixtures naturally occur in an asteroidal hydrological system with desalinization by freezing because formamide and water have similar freezing points. Formamide is a major byproduct in the abiotic formation of RNA and proteins.

The initial genome for tRNAs was the 16s RNA of the ribosome. In the progenotic era reproduction had to be done by different types of templating. For instance, the Na/H antiporter necessary for the initial power system is in a dimeric form. Initial mechanochemistry was based on Halloysite clay. Initial polypeptide selection was more complicated because it involved electrochemistry where polypeptides both acted as field effective transistors and as the objects of separation by electrophoresis. This is all based on the conservation of properties in today's biology.

Quote
We are centuries away from the basic hard evidence for such life, before even beginning abiogenesis in other solvents.

We have hard evidence today but it can only be seen by people who are not locked into the dogma that life on Earth started on Earth. Stages of development can be seen in meteorites as enantiomeric excesses, i.e., measure of biological chirality, change between different biochemicals. The rock in which these are contained gives a good history of the planetary environment in which this biochemistry is took place.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bobolink on 10/05/2020 02:35:37
Occam's razor says, you a crazy guy.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 10/05/2020 03:00:24
Ocean's razor says, you a crazy guy.
For simplicity I follow Einstein:
Quote
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
You appear to have not been reading modern fundamental science and math papers.

Who is this guy Ocean?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: puppypower on 10/05/2020 14:16:01
We have hard evidence today but it can only be seen by people who are not locked into the dogma that life on Earth started on Earth. Stages of development can be seen in meteorites as enantiomeric excesses, i.e., measure of biological chirality, change between different biochemicals. The rock in which these are contained gives a good history of the planetary environment in which this biochemistry is took place.

If you look at our universe, the most common atoms of the universe are hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon, neon and nitrogen. The atoms fro the peptide linkage, common to all proteins, are very common in the universe; HOCN.

The three most common molecules of the universe are H2;hydrogen, H2O; water and CO; carbon monoxide. It is not coincidence that Chemistry uses water as the center piece, since water is so common and is part of so many things, in so many different ways. Water displays over 70 known anomalies, were water deviates from the patterns found in other substances. Water is small and  common, but also very complex. Water is the swiss army knife of nature.

For example, one well known anomaly of water is water expands when it freezes. This is not common in nature, since most other materials contract as they freeze. This is one tool in the swiss army knife, This tool is very important to star formation. Water, in space, exists as ice. Although H2 is more common, this exists mostly as a gas. The net affect ice is more impacted by gravity due to ice being solid. While water as H2O contains hydrogen for fusion.

As gravity collects and compresses the ice, the ice in the core will start to melt due to the gravitational work. Because ice is expanded relative to liquid water, the melting of the core ice leads to something I call fusion hammer. The water will collapse, from core outward, by about 10% during gravitational compression. This can result in a runaway collapse of a ball of ice; fusion hammer. Hydrogen does not collapse like this, while water can be D2O, or T2O and contain the heavy hydrogen for fusion.   

I am aware, and I do not doubt, that many of the precursors of life, can be found almost anywhere there is water and some of the other needed gases, With water being so common, these sources of precursors will include asteroids and moons. It is also possible, life on earth was seeded by asteroids. But at the same time, life was also forming on the earth, due to its huge water supply. It does not that not have to one or the other, since water is reactive under so many conditions, and it is the second most common molecule in the universe.

What the earth brings to the table, is connected to a recently discovery. Science has found water all the way to the core of the earth. Conceptually, water creates a type of continuity, from the core to the atmosphere.

Forming the precursors of life has many chemical pathways.. Going from these precursors, to full assembly into life, may have benefited by the earth's water; the swiss army knife going from the  atmosphere all the way to the core. This would allow water and life to be part of the dynamic nature of the entire earth, from core to the atmosphere.

Life on earth is currently part of what shaped and shapes the surface of the earth, in response to solar and terrestrial affects, from climate to geology. Life, for example, is assumed to be the source of molecular oxygen; O2, in the current atmosphere. There was no molecular oxygen before photosynthesis. Chlorophyll changed the surface of the earth to a more highly oxidizing environment. This had a profound impact on the surface chemistry. If water is continuos, this potential can conceptually be transmit to the core.

One logical affect is the iron core of the earth is rusting; oxidation, and electrons are being released and conduct to the surface. The oceans are slightly alkaline or negatively charged. This may have impacted the formation of life, since it would provide a potential with the hydrogen bonding of water; extra free energy source, not be found isolated places with only precursors. 

Science cam make the precursors in the lab, but assembly into life is the bottleneck. This would explain why life is not as common based on how common water is. The universal availability of water can explain why amino acids and other precursors of life, are easy to spot all over the universe. But the second step, to full assembly into life, is rare and  yet to be found. It may take an entire planet to set the stage, from core to surface.   
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bobolink on 10/05/2020 15:07:00
Who is this guy Ocean?
Ha ha, isn't spell check great...

Ocean, Occam and basically all of us think you a crazy guy!
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bobolink on 10/05/2020 15:13:59
One logical affect is the iron core of the earth is rusting
If by logical you mean bat-sh1t crazy, then I agree.:)
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 10/05/2020 16:06:02
Ocean, Occam and basically all of us think you a crazy guy!

You have poked me here enough that I have decided to name my theory "the general theory of simplicity" following the naming of Einstein's theories. By "general" I mean every extension of "simplicity" necessary for building an overall description of reality. Algorithmic simplicity is a special case just as "special relativity" was the special case for flat spacetime.


One logical affect is the iron core of the earth is rusting
If by logical you mean bat-sh1t crazy, then I agree.:)

I sympathize with your feelings here.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 10/05/2020 19:52:53
Ocean, Occam and basically all of us think you a crazy guy!

I wouldn't call him crazy. I certainly think he's reaching (what evidence is there that Vesta ever even had a satellite?), but crazy is too strong of a word. I think his scenario may actually be technically possible, but the evidence for this highly specific scenario is definitely lacking.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 10/05/2020 20:49:04
I wouldn't call him crazy. I certainly think he's reaching (what evidence is there that Vesta ever even had a satellite?), but crazy is too strong of a word. I think his scenario may actually be technically possible, but the evidence for this highly specific scenario is definitely lacking.

The strong direct evidence for life starting on an asteroid is in carbonaceous meteorites. The overall scenario has a lot of indirect evidence in biology and geology. For instance, Vesta is the unique asteroid that condensed inside the orbit of Mars so was in the right temperature zone. It has a rapid rate of rotation consistent with its having captured a carbonaceous satellite by collision. The evidence for the stripping of the satellite are anomalous spectra of the moons of Mars and a region on Vesta.

I continue to check out the various pieces of the scenario. For instance, the type of gamma ray burst I have been assuming would generate a nonstandard gravitational wave event. I checked with the event list and did find two such events. At first pass this is marginally significant because this type of event would not generally pass the software that filters for standard events. A special statistical analysis checking whether these nonstandard "glitches" are real astronomical events will be necessary to achieve a convincingly high significance or to reject them. In the case of rejection I will have to rework my inverse Drake equation analysis because I included the existence of the gamma ray burst as a major Drake factor.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 10/05/2020 22:00:08
For instance, Vesta is the unique asteroid that condensed inside the orbit of Mars so was in the right temperature zone.

"The"? You make it sound as if it was the only such asteroid to do that. You have absolutely no way of pinning the origin of life on a hypothetical satellite of Vesta with unknown properties out of all the countless asteroids that are out there, including those that have yet to be discovered.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 10/05/2020 22:15:20
"Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?"
Probably not. There's certainly no reason to suppose that it did.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 10/05/2020 23:22:03
For instance, Vesta is the unique asteroid that condensed inside the orbit of Mars so was in the right temperature zone.

"The"? You make it sound as if it was the only such asteroid to do that. You have absolutely no way of pinning the origin of life on a hypothetical satellite of Vesta with unknown properties out of all the countless asteroids that are out there, including those that have yet to be discovered.


The minerals condensing from the solar nebula nearer to the proto-Sun had less iron and so are lighter. Vesta is considerably lighter than all the other asteroids with measured brightness. We can confirm its composition because we have meteorites that have the same spectrum and undoubtedly came from there. We also know that its orbit can have been boosted by gravitational interactions with Ceres. I already gave my reasons for saying that it had a former satellite. To recapitulate it is based directly on the spectra of the Moons of Mars and Vesta and and indirectly on the chemistry of carbonaceous meteorites. Given all the data and constraints on the origin of life there is no other reasonable location. Invoking undiscovered asteroids is just nitpicking. Technically everything down to boulders are "asteroids". Anything too small or too far away to have been discovered, however, are either too small or too cold to have been seriously involved.

"Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?"
Probably not. There's certainly no reason to suppose that it did.

The bored troll has to resort to an openly false statement that I have given no reason when I have given many.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 10/05/2020 23:50:15
The minerals condensing from the solar nebula nearer to the proto-Sun had less iron and so are lighter. Vesta is considerably lighter than all the other asteroids with measured brightness. We can confirm its composition because we have meteorites that have the same spectrum and undoubtedly came from there. We also know that its orbit can have been boosted by gravitational interactions with Ceres. I already gave my reasons for saying that it had a former satellite. To recapitulate it is based directly on the spectra of the Moons of Mars and Vesta and and indirectly on the chemistry of carbonaceous meteorites. Given all the data and constraints on the origin of life there is no other reasonable location. Invoking undiscovered asteroids is just nitpicking. Technically everything down to boulders are "asteroids". Anything too small or too far away to have been discovered, however, are either too small or too cold to have been seriously involved.

(1) None of that means that Vesta ever had a satellite. Just because Vesta is spinning faster than most asteroids and has spectra consistent with a collision from a carbonaceous chondrite does not mean that the object in question was ever actually a satellite of Vesta. It could just as easily have been a rogue asteroid of its own that crossed paths with Vesta at some point in its history.

(2) You don't know that there was ever a "warm spring" on your hypothetical satellite of Vesta. As such, you don't know that your hypothetical satellite ever had the needed conditions for life to arise.

(3) Even if your scenario is plausible, you don't know that those circumstances didn't arise on other asteroids early in the Solar System's history that have since been destroyed by impacts with other objects. So life could just have easily arisen on one of those objects, been carried to Earth, then the object was destroyed.

(4) Nit-picking is just fine when it's the truth.

(5) If life can arise in a "warm spring", then a warm spring on early Mars, the Moon, Venus or in a desert on Earth could just as easily produce life (not everywhere on the Earth is wet, you know). Even one of the satellites of Jupiter could have had warm springs soon after they were formed (and tectonically active moons like Io may still have them). Mercury could have had warm springs near its poles back when it had plenty of internal heat left over after its initial formation (there is evidence for ice at the poles today). For all we know, life could have even come from outside of the Solar System.

The bored troll has to resort to an openly false statement that I have given no reason when I have given many.

Your reasons are questionable at best.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 11/05/2020 03:00:21
(1) None of that means that Vesta ever had a satellite. Just because Vesta is spinning faster than most asteroids and has spectra consistent with a collision from a carbonaceous chondrite does not mean that the object in question was ever actually a satellite of Vesta. It could just as easily have been a rogue asteroid of its own that crossed paths with Vesta at some point in its history.

The object would need to be a satellite of something large to have a nearby ring to harvest high energy molecules. The initial planetesimals of the main asteroid belt would be large enough but it is doubtful that any near surface colony could survive in that high collision environment.

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(2) You don't know that there was ever a "warm spring" on your hypothetical satellite of Vesta. As such, you don't know that your hypothetical satellite ever had the needed conditions for life to arise.

The meteorites have been aqueously altered. If the parent body was large enough, this means there were springs. After a while these would become relatively closed hydrological systems, which is what is really needed. The large number of mutations in Photosystem I imply that one of these became a natural nuclear reactor.

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(3) Even if your scenario is plausible, you don't know that those circumstances didn't arise on other asteroids early in the Solar System's history that have since been destroyed by impacts with other objects. So life could just have easily arisen on one of those objects, been carried to Earth, then the object was destroyed.

I an assuming that Vesta and its satellite were in a 3:2 resonance with the Earth to protect them from colliding with the inner planets or main belt asteroids long enough for the crust of Mars to harden. There are two main type of asteroids in the main belt, presumably because Jupiter shifted leading to the mixing of the two populations and a lot of grinding.

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(4) Nit-picking is just fine when it's the truth.

Forcing scientists to precisely qualify all their statements is not acceptable protocol because it would lead to extremely verbose language. In is customary to drop qualifications when counterexamples become too unlikely. If one does have a specific counterexample, it is OK to go ahead and point it out.

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(5) If life can arise in a "warm spring", then a warm spring on early Mars, the Moon, Venus or in a desert on Earth could just as easily produce life (not everywhere on the Earth is wet, you know). Even one of the satellites of Jupiter could have had warm springs soon after they were formed (and tectonically active moons like Io may still have them). Mercury could have had warm springs near its poles back when it had plenty of internal heat left over after its initial formation (there is evidence for ice at the poles today). For all we know, life could have even come from outside of the Solar System.

Bodies with atmospheres would have retained the water, leading to destruction and dilution of the chemical precursors. Icy bodies would not have the necessary nutrients. Transfers from the inner planets would not work because the launch shocks would kill any life on board. The Moon became molten so is not a good candidate. Io's sulferous volcanos are not suitable. Interstellar lithopanspermia is popular in some circles, but requires some better explanation of why advanced civilizations have not been seen. Why invoke such a questionable hypothesis when there is good evidence for a specific site within the Solar System? There is also good evidence for the Unique Earth hypothesis, which I have not brought up here because it is too controversial given the modern science-religion schism.



The bored troll has to resort to an openly false statement that I have given no reason when I have given many.

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Your reasons are questionable at best.

They are not questionable when taken in the context of the entire theory. You are only getting a small part because of the practical limitations of dialogue on the forum. I am spending most of my time refining my research rather than writing to explain it to a general audience.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 11/05/2020 03:21:55
The object would need to be a satellite of something large to have a nearby ring to harvest high energy molecules. The initial planetesimals of the main asteroid belt would be large enough but it is doubtful that any near surface colony could survive in that high collision environment.

So high energy molecules can only be found in rings now? What do you qualify as a "high energy molecule"? How do you even know that your hypothetical satellite had those high energy molecules in first place?

If the parent body was large enough, this means there were springs

And you know that your hypothetical satellite was large enough for this... how?

The large number of mutations in Photosystem I imply that one of these became a natural nuclear reactor.

And you know that the conditions needed to create such a reactor existed there... how?

I an assuming that Vesta and its satellite were in a 3:2 resonance with the Earth to protect them from colliding with the inner planets or main belt asteroids long enough for the crust of Mars to harden.

"Assuming" being the key word here.

Forcing scientists to precisely qualify all their statements is not acceptable protocol because it would lead to extremely verbose language. In is customary to drop qualifications when counterexamples become too unlikely. If one does have a specific counterexample, it is OK to go ahead and point it out.

What does any of that have to do with the fact that life could have originated somewhere other than an object that we don't even know for sure existed?

Bodies with atmospheres would have retained the water, leading to destruction and dilution of the chemical precursors.

And yet you claim that sufficient water to form a warm spring is necessary for your scenario to work. If life can originate in a warm spring, then some water vapor in the atmosphere is going be meaningless by comparison.

Icy bodies would not have the necessary nutrients.

How do you know? Titan's surface is practically chock full of organic compounds.

Transfers from the inner planets would not work because the launch shocks would kill any life on board.

How do you know? There is at least some experimental evidence that microbial survival of such impacts is plausible: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001E%26PSL.189....1M/abstract https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040830/full/news040830-10.html

he Moon became molten so is not a good candidate.

I was obviously talking about life forming in warm springs on the Moon after it cooled sufficiently.

Io's sulferous volcanos are not suitable.

I never proposed the formation of life in those volcanoes.

Interstellar lithopanspermia is popular in some circles, but requires some better explanation of why advanced civilizations have not been seen.

Fermi's Paradox is unresolved regardless of whether panspermia is a real phenomenon or not.

Why invoke such a questionable hypothesis when there is good evidence for a specific site within the Solar System?

Because there isn't good evidence that life originated on a hypothetical satellite of Vesta. We don't even know that it existed, much less whether it had suitable conditions for the formation of life.

They are not questionable when taken in the context of the entire theory.

So you mean you have actual evidence of the origin of life in warm springs on an object that we've never seen before? Why not post that evidence already?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 11/05/2020 10:02:18

So high energy molecules can only be found in rings now? What do you qualify as a "high energy molecule"? How do you even know that your hypothetical satellite had those high energy molecules in first place?

The most relevant high energy molecules are HCN and HCOH. They are formed in a low density gas phase by high energy radiation. There have to be collection processes to get them concentrated into a condensed matter environment. This is first by absorption on dust, then collection onto the rings, and finally collection onto the satellite.

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And you know that your hypothetical satellite was large enough for this... how?

You are violating the logical rules for scientific model building. One first makes a set of assumptions that are reasonably probable and then analyzes whether those assumptions generate the desired result - the origin of life in this case. Asteroids come in a range of sizes so choosing a necessary minimum size within that range is a perfectly reasonable step. If one thinks there is a better model, it is their responsibility to present it.

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The large number of mutations in Photosystem I imply that one of these became a natural nuclear reactor.

And you know that the conditions needed to create such a reactor existed there... how?

The large number of mutations is the evidence that there was a reactor. Supplying oxygen by photosynthesis, removing chlorine by desalinization by freezing, and having a high U-235 concentration are necessary conditions, which all can be easily met.

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I am assuming that Vesta and its satellite were in a 3:2 resonance with the Earth to protect them from colliding with the inner planets or main belt asteroids long enough for the crust of Mars to harden.

"Assuming" being the key word here.

Exactly. I am making a reasonable assumption to insure survival of the system, which is not available for other possible candidates.

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Forcing scientists to precisely qualify all their statements is not acceptable protocol because it would lead to extremely verbose language. In is customary to drop qualifications when counterexamples become too unlikely. If one does have a specific counterexample, it is OK to go ahead and point it out.

What does any of that have to do with the fact that life could have originated somewhere other than an object that we don't even know for sure existed?

It has to do with the fact that you are presenting vacuous arguments by constantly saying, "There are other possibilities! There are other possibilities!" without every showing that they are more reasonable. There are always more possibilities if you want to ignore probabilities. That an object no longer exists is a common occurrence.

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Bodies with atmospheres would have retained the water, leading to destruction and dilution of the chemical precursors.

And yet you claim that sufficient water to form a warm spring is necessary for your scenario to work. If life can originate in a warm spring, then some water vapor in the atmosphere is going be meaningless by comparison.

I am talking not only about some water vapor, but also liquid water spread out over the large surface of a planet for dilution and with random catalysts and sunlight for destruction.


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Icy bodies would not have the necessary nutrients.

How do you know? Titan's surface is practically chock full of organic compounds.

You had mentioned the moons of Jupiter. Titan has an atmosphere where the organic compounds are not readily available because they are quickly converted into alkanes and high molecular weight molecules.

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Transfers from the inner planets would not work because the launch shocks would kill any life on board.

How do you know? There is at least some experimental evidence that microbial survival of such impacts is plausible: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001E%26PSL.189....1M/abstract https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040830/full/news040830-10.html

It is shock that matters, not acceleration and jerk. Shock studies have shown that ejection from Mars is OK, but probably not from the innermost planets. I use the moons of Mars as a probable refuge when Mars gets struck by an asteroid. For interstellar panspermia no one has shown that organisms would be able to survive the combination of cryogenic desiccation and radiation for long enough.

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The Moon became molten so is not a good candidate.

I was obviously talking about life forming in warm springs on the Moon after it cooled sufficiently.

Melting the Moon drove off water, unlike with an unmelted carbonaceous chondritic body full of hydrates.

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Io's sulfurous volcanoes are not suitable.

I never proposed the formation of life in those volcanoes.

The hardened sulfurous surface is also not suitable.

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Interstellar lithopanspermia is popular in some circles, but requires some better explanation of why advanced civilizations have not been seen.

Fermi's Paradox is unresolved regardless of whether panspermia is a real phenomenon or not.

It is easily resolved by the case where we are alone in the universe but as I said the science/religion schism has prevented the appropriate discussion.

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Why invoke such a questionable hypothesis when there is good evidence for a specific site within the Solar System?

Because there isn't good evidence that life originated on a hypothetical satellite of Vesta. We don't even know that it existed, much less whether it had suitable conditions for the formation of life.

Just asserting that I have not been presenting good evidence does not make it so.

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They are not questionable when taken in the context of the entire theory.

So you mean you have actual evidence of the origin of life in warm springs on an object that we've never seen before? Why not post that evidence already?

That is what I have been doing. Once again you are confusing the logical order of scientific model building - make reasonable assumption first;  then analyze whether the model works.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 11/05/2020 11:33:49
The bored troll has to resort to an openly false statement that I have given no reason when I have given many.
You have given some ideas that suggest that , maybe, somewhere other than Earth is a possibility.
Nothing you have said favours a satellite of Vesta over a satellite of another body or, indeed, a nigh infinite  array of other possibilities.

So, I stand by my assertion.
There's no reason to think  that life evolved where you  say it did.

Also, you need to look:
(1) up trolling
(2) in the mirror.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 11/05/2020 11:34:30
That is what I have been doing. Once again you are confusing the logical order of scientific model building - make reasonable assumption first;  then analyze whether the model works.
Then apply Occam's razor...
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: puppypower on 11/05/2020 13:12:59
That is what I have been doing. Once again you are confusing the logical order of scientific model building - make reasonable assumption first;  then analyze whether the model works.
Then apply Occam's razor...

If we apply Occam's razor we would eliminate all statistical models since these have too many loose ends with finite probability. This adds too much conceptual complexity and adds to much faith in winner the lottery. This will appeal to gambling addicts, but not common sense.

The formation of the precursors of life is not that complicated and can form in many ways. The Millar Urey experiments, and the many others that followed, made all types of needed molecules in many different ways using different conditions. It is possible the precursors of life were able to  form under many conditions, including on moons, asteroids and directly on the earth.

The water-oil affect, which requires the liquid phase, is key to assembly. The liquid phase has properties that are unique compared to the gaseous and solid phases. Gases can only be placed under pressure, but not under tension. We measure a gas by its partial pressure. If we pull a vacuum; tension, the pressure goes down, but we are not creating tension in the gas. 

Solids can be placed under tension and pressure, but not both at the same time and achieve a steady state. It we push and pull a solid, it will move in space and therefore not achieve a state state. Liquids can be placed under pressure and tension at the same time, while also reaching a steady state. A glass of water, open to the air, is under atmospheric pressure; pushing down. While surface tension forms at the surface, at steady state. Pressure can cause tension to build in liquids. This is useful, when the swiss army knife, called water, is part of the system.

The physics are unique within the liquid state and these unique properties of physics are needed for life.  If we dehydrate the DNA, it will form a crystalline state, which is solid. The DNA looses its liquid state physics properties, and therefore no longer works. I needs the paradox of pressure causing tension at steady state. The liquid state properties are intimately connected to the hydrogen bonding of water and and the hydrogen bonding of other important organic materials.

Hydrogen bonding has both polar and covalent bonding character. The polar bonding character is more compressed, while the covalent bonding character is more expanded. Liquids are a very crowded place for moving molecules. The dual bonding nature of hydrogen bonding, allows hydrogen bonds to express the tension and pressure paradox, similar to the liquid state. The two states of hydrogen bonding are balanced throughout the aqueous continuum at steady state.

In the water-oil affect, water and oil will create surface tension. There is too much tension in the water at steady state; too much covalent hydrogen bonding. There is a potential to add pressure via changes in hydrogen bonding more toward the polar side. This can be made to increase with increasing mechanical and osmotic pressures.

This potential for change can be used for energy and entropy at surfaces. Other liquid solvents use liquid state physics. However, the solvent itself does not have the secondary capacity to mimic the tension and pressure,paradox, as well as water. Water can add another layer to the physics.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 11/05/2020 15:37:52
If we apply Occam's razor we would eliminate all statistical models
Occam wrote it before there were any statisticians.
" Entities should not be multiplied without necessity."
So "we have places that might be the cradle of life"

Or "we have places that might be the cradle of life and are a satellite of Vesta " and "we have places that might be the cradle of life and are not a satellite of Vesta "

That category distinction is one we don't need.
Otherwise it gets silly
"we have places that might be the cradle of life and are the cupboard under the stairs "...

The water-oil affect, which requires the liquid phase, is key to assembly.
So, a wet planet is a good start.
And let's look at vesta
"Temperatures on the surface have been estimated to lie between about −20 °C with the Sun overhead, dropping to about −190 °C at the winter pole".

OK we can write that off as an option for life.

Now, let's consider any smaller body at a comparable distance from the Sun.
It's going to have a much smaller gravitational field.
So it's more likely that stuff as volatile as water (water is still volatile when it's frozen- the process is called sublimation) will be lost.
And, of course, it's smaller,  so there's less stuff to lose.

Any hypothetical satellite of Vesta will be much dryer than Vesta.
And far too cold for liquid water.

So, not a place to find
The water-oil affect, which requires the liquid phase, is key to assembly.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 11/05/2020 19:53:42
If we apply Occam's razor we would eliminate all statistical models
Occam wrote it before there were any statisticians.
" Entities should not be multiplied without necessity."
So "we have places that might be the cradle of life"

Or "we have places that might be the cradle of life and are a satellite of Vesta " and "we have places that might be the cradle of life and are not a satellite of Vesta "

You give an excellent example of how not to use Occam's razor. Puppypower generally has the right idea but there needs to be a way of cutting off the infinite number of possibilities with diminishing small probabilities. That is why I use an inverse Drake equation. Use a Bayesian prior of there being one planet with advanced civilization in all the inhabitable planets in the universe. It does not matter what cutoff for habitability one uses. Though the choice will change at least one Drake factor, it will not change the scientific conclusions.

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So, a wet planet is a good start.
And let's look at vesta
"Temperatures on the surface have been estimated to lie between about −20 °C with the Sun overhead, dropping to about −190 °C at the winter pole".

OK we can write that off as an option for life.

Just ignore the fact that Vesta is in a chaotic orbit and can be much closer to the Sun. Indeed ignore the fact that the model under discussion places it much closer to the Sun in the relevant era.

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Any hypothetical satellite of Vesta will be much dryer than Vesta.

Vesta was large enough to melt and drive off water, which made it much dryer than any small carbonaceous satellite.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 11/05/2020 21:14:16
The most relevant high energy molecules are HCN and HCOH.

Hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde can be found in the atmosphere of Titan. The Urey-Miller experiment demonstrated that hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde can be generated from simple chemical precursors using mechanisms that were plausible on the early Earth. It's hardly necessary for them to collected from rings.

You are violating the logical rules for scientific model building. One first makes a set of assumptions that are reasonably probable and then analyzes whether those assumptions generate the desired result - the origin of life in this case. Asteroids come in a range of sizes so choosing a necessary minimum size within that range is a perfectly reasonable step. If one thinks there is a better model, it is their responsibility to present it.

Except that you have absolutely no way of knowing the size of that hypothetical satellite. Sure, you can propose that it had such a size and that your scenario could have happened, but you absolutely cannot say that it probably happened.

The large number of mutations is the evidence that there was a reactor.

The large number of mutations in what? Do you have some kind of sample of life from your hypothetical satellite or something? Surely you're not arguing that the large number of mutations in life forms on Earth is evidence that there was a natural nuclear reactor on your hypothetical satellite. Life on Earth has been mutating for billions of years. And there are many things that can cause life to mutate (ultraviolet radiation, mutagenic chemicals, and errors in replication that occur naturally without such triggers in the first place). How you can possibly say that a given set of mutations was caused by exposure to a natural nuclear reactor billions of years ago is beyond me.

Exactly. I am making a reasonable assumption to insure survival of the system, which is not available for other possible candidates.

But it is available. If a warm spring with organic material is all you need, then there are many plausible candidates in the Solar System. If a warm spring on your satellite can produce life then a warm spring in a desert on early Earth could do that same thing. That hypothesis has two advantages over yours: we know that the Earth exists and what its properties are/were (so no need to make the extra assumption that an object that we can't observe today existed) and there is no need to assume panspermia (because life would have started right here on Earth). Take careful note how I specified a desert in order to meet your qualification that the environment not be too wet.

It has to do with the fact that you are presenting vacuous arguments by constantly saying, "There are other possibilities! There are other possibilities!" without every showing that they are more reasonable. There are always more possibilities if you want to ignore probabilities. That an object no longer exists is a common occurrence.

Your arguments against life starting somewhere other than your hypothetical satellite are insufficient. You make it sound as if your warm spring is somehow unique when compared to a warm spring on any other body in the solar system. Any object with sufficient internal heat and a subsurface water supply can potentially have warm springs. Given how common water is in the Solar System, a large percentage of bodies in the Solar System would have had exactly those conditions early in their formation when they still retained a large amount of internal heat from their formation. Just look for bodies that have a high organic content (like tholins) and those bodies become just as good a source for life as your hypothetical satellite.

I am talking not only about some water vapor, but also liquid water spread out over the large surface of a planet for dilution and with random catalysts and sunlight for destruction.

Just in case you didn't notice, the Earth is not covered entirely in water. We have deserts here. The same was very probably true for Mars and Venus as well. If sunlight is a problem, then put the spring in a cave or some similar dark place.

It is shock that matters, not acceleration and jerk. Shock studies have shown that ejection from Mars is OK, but probably not from the innermost planets.

I would actually be interested in reading those studies if you can provide a link. But that's not even necessary if a warm spring in a desert on Earth was where life originated.

Melting the Moon drove off water, unlike with an unmelted carbonaceous chondritic body full of hydrates.

There is water on the Moon today in the form of ice, so it managed to either keep some water, generate it in situ after it solidified or acquired more through asteroid/comet impacts.

The hardened sulfurous surface is also not suitable.

Hardened? Can you provide a reference to it being harder than other satellites? I will concede that the sulfur compounds could be a problem.

It is easily resolved by the case where we are alone in the universe but as I said the science/religion schism has prevented the appropriate discussion.

And that's a perfectly plausible solution. But we don't know either way.

Just asserting that I have not been presenting good evidence does not make it so.

Right. It's the actual lack of good evidence that does that. Your model builds assumption on top of assumption. That might make it possible, but that does not make it probable (given that nigh-identical warm spring scenarios could originate on many different bodies in the Solar System).
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: puppypower on 12/05/2020 12:17:41
If we apply Occam's razor we would eliminate all statistical models
Occam wrote it before there were any statisticians.
" Entities should not be multiplied without necessity."
So "we have places that might be the cradle of life"

Or "we have places that might be the cradle of life and are a satellite of Vesta " and "we have places that might be the cradle of life and are not a satellite of Vesta "

That category distinction is one we don't need.
Otherwise it gets silly
"we have places that might be the cradle of life and are the cupboard under the stairs "...

Statistics strikes me as a hybrid of science and legal mumble jumble. Anything is possible and the exceptions to the rule have lower probability. It creates the illusion of being rational but uses fuzzy dice to define valid and invalid. It remains me of defense lawyer trying to walk the fence so his criminal client can escape on a technically. Occam's Razor never assumed science would resort to legal hoaxes.

Consider the statical model predictions for the corona virus. They were way off. If this had been Relativity and its prediction were that far off, it would have been nipped in the bud. But the statistical virus models still lingers because the hoax approach is very flexible because of pseudo-legal arguments.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 12:41:18
Statistics strikes me as a hybrid of science and legal mumble jumble.
Whch speaks volumes about you, because it's a branch of mathematics.
Consider the statical model predictions for the corona virus.
OK, Let's consider it- properly.
The inputs to the model were uncertain.
The modelers will have done sensitivity calculations and their reports will have been full of statements of assumptions, and error margins, confidence limits and so on.

And, because the uninformed think "Statistics strikes me as a hybrid of science and legal mumble jumble" and they define what gets into the news, the media report a single line as being the "output from the model"
It's in the class of "lies you tell children"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children

And then you turn up her and say "They were way off."

Well,were they?
Did you look at all of them?
Are they really all outside of their confidence intervals?
Were that data on which they were based inaccurate?

Or are you just talking nonsense?
But the statistical virus models still lingers because the hoax approach is very flexible because of pseudo-legal arguments.
That doesn't even mean anything.
Guess what- if statistical models didn't work, we wouldn't use them.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bobolink on 12/05/2020 12:56:38
Statistics strikes me as a hybrid of science and legal mumble jumble.
It is actually mathematics.
 
Anything is possible and the exceptions to the rule have lower probability. It creates the illusion of being rational but uses fuzzy dice to define valid and invalid. It remains me of defense lawyer trying to walk the fence so his criminal client can escape on a technically. Occam's Razor never assumed science would resort to legal hoaxes.
You don't realize that statistics are intimately involved in your life.  A large percentage of the amount of your bills are based on statistics.  I have used statisticians to help in the analysis of experiments that I ran and found the their analysis really helpful in quantifying the results.  I think actual results are more important than your feelings.
Consider the statical model predictions for the corona virus. They were way off. If this had been Relativity and its prediction were that far off, it would have been nipped in the bud. But the statistical virus models still lingers because the hoax approach is very flexible because of pseudo-legal arguments.
You are correct that the models are not perfect.  Is that because statistics is flawed?
I think it is about the quality of the data going into the model.  This is a new virus, so we don't know the infection rate, we don't know the death rate, we don't know rate of asymptomatic people and we don't have testing to an adequate level.  All of these unknowns lead to a model that is not going to be perfect. 

Edit to add:  Crap, you're faster than me Bored chemist!
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 13:33:53
It's a perpetual grumble among statisticians. People do the experiment, then go talk to them.
If you involve the statisticians at the start, you get a better designed experiment.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 18:37:06
[
Just asserting that I have not been presenting good evidence does not make it so.

Right. It's the actual lack of good evidence that does that. Your model builds assumption on top of assumption. That might make it possible, but that does not make it probable (given that nigh-identical warm spring scenarios could originate on many different bodies in the Solar System).


Kriptid, I am not going to make a point by point rebuttal of your comments because you are just rehashing points that I have already addressed. It is obvious that you are not remembering what I have said long enough to make insightful replies. You keep claiming that scenarios are "nigh-identical" after I have pointed out how they are distinctIy different. I have already built a high probability case within the context of astrobiology research. You need to reply to me with the understanding that I am aware of a large portion of the relevant results of that research.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 18:41:38
Vesta was large enough to melt and drive off wate
How?
Big things needn't be hotter
The Moon is smaller than the Earth, but the mid"day" temperature is a lot hotter.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 19:34:34
Vesta was large enough to melt and drive off water
How?
Big things needn't be hotter
The Moon is smaller than the Earth, but the mid"day" temperature is a lot hotter.

The high temperatures to create lava come mostly from the decay of radioactive isotopes. Larger bodies lose heat more slowly so become hotter.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 12/05/2020 19:40:47
Kriptid, I am not going to make a point by point rebuttal of your comments because you are just rehashing points that I have already addressed.

Since when did you address the warm spring in a desert on Earth? All I recall you saying was that Earth was too wet, which is why I countered with the desert example. You know what a desert is, don't you?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 19:49:23
Kriptid, I am not going to make a point by point rebuttal of your comments because you are just rehashing points that I have already addressed.

Since when did you address the warm spring in a desert on Earth? All I recall you saying was that Earth was too wet, which is why I countered with the desert example. You know what a desert is, don't you?

I also said that water and surface catalysts destroy high energy, reactive chemicals, e.g., HCN and HCOH. It is a global process because they are volatile.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 12/05/2020 19:51:56
I also said that water and surface catalysts destroy high energy, reactive chemicals, e.g., HCN and HCOH. It is a global process because they are volatile.

And what do you think a warm spring is made of?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 20:02:10
The high temperatures to create lava come mostly from the decay of radioactive isotopes. Larger bodies lose heat more slowly so become hotter.

Ok, let's make an assumption- there's the same percentage radioactive "stuff" in Vesta as in Earth.
It's questionable but it's a start.
Vesta is small- radius 263 km.
Earth's much bigger 6,371 km

Vesta has about 4% of the radius of Earth
So it's got about 0.04^3 of the amount of heat generation.
But 0.04^2 times the area
So the heat per square metre is only about 4% of that of the Earth.
And much of the water on Earth is frozen, even though the Earth's near the Sun..

So the heat output from Vesta wouldn't be enough to thaw the water, would it?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 20:12:38
I also said that water and surface catalysts destroy high energy, reactive chemicals, e.g., HCN and HCOH. It is a global process because they are volatile.

And what do you think a warm spring is made of?

A warm spring can become a small self organizing system which can host a smaller self organizing system that can lead to the first instance of life. Up to the edge of the spring you want a relatively nonreactive environment so chemical precursors finally react within the self organizing systems. Any large relatively reactive and unorganized regions between the source of the precursors and the spring will kill the process by destroying the precursors.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 12/05/2020 20:15:36
A warm spring can become a small self organizing system which can host a smaller self organizing system that can lead to the first instance of life. Up to the edge of the spring you want a relatively nonreactive environment so chemical precursors finally react within the self organizing systems. Any large relatively reactive and unorganized regions between the source of the precursors and the spring will kill the process by destroying the precursors.

All right then, so we agree that water in itself won't destroy hydrogen cyanide or formaldehyde. So what about those catalysts you speak of? Which ones in particular did you have in mind?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 20:20:13
The high temperatures to create lava come mostly from the decay of radioactive isotopes. Larger bodies lose heat more slowly so become hotter.

Ok, let's make an assumption- there's the same percentage radioactive "stuff" in Vesta as in Earth.
It's questionable but it's a start.
Vesta is small- radius 263 km.
Earth's much bigger 6,371 km

Vesta has about 4% of the radius of Earth
So it's got about 0.04^3 of the amount of heat generation.
But 0.04^2 times the area
So the heat per square metre is only about 4% of that of the Earth.
And much of the water on Earth is frozen, even though the Earth's near the Sun..

So the heat output from Vesta wouldn't be enough to thaw the water, would it?

Vesta was hot enough to melt. Its surface is igneous. There was a lot of radioactive aluminum-26 in the early Solar system.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 20:23:32

All right then, so we agree that water in itself won't destroy hydrogen cyanide or formaldehyde. So what about those catalysts you speak of? Which ones in particular did you have in mind?

Minerals with transition metals.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 20:32:21
The high temperatures to create lava come mostly from the decay of radioactive isotopes. Larger bodies lose heat more slowly so become hotter.

Ok, let's make an assumption- there's the same percentage radioactive "stuff" in Vesta as in Earth.
It's questionable but it's a start.
Vesta is small- radius 263 km.
Earth's much bigger 6,371 km

Vesta has about 4% of the radius of Earth
So it's got about 0.04^3 of the amount of heat generation.
But 0.04^2 times the area
So the heat per square metre is only about 4% of that of the Earth.
And much of the water on Earth is frozen, even though the Earth's near the Sun..

So the heat output from Vesta wouldn't be enough to thaw the water, would it?

Vesta was hot enough to melt. Its surface is igneous. There was a lot of radioactive aluminum-26 in the early Solar system.
OK, so it was bone dry.
And, like dry bones, devoid of life.
Looking on the bright side, we should have lost any interest from Puppypower.

It's conceivable that there might be some tarry stuff with organic stuff in it. But with no water we won't have anything that looks liek life as we know it.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 12/05/2020 20:34:04
Minerals with transition metals.

Which raises some further questions:

(1) How fast is the breakdown process? Is it faster than the rate that formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide can accumulate in them?
(2) Would all warm springs on Earth have necessarily had such minerals in them (at least in the quantities needed to destroy those organic molecules)?
(3) Why would your hypothetical satellite be exempt from having transition metal minerals in its same warm springs?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 20:50:12
There was a lot of radioactive aluminum-26 in the early Solar system.
Where from?
It's got a half life of about a million years so it would have to have been added somehow.
Where did it go?
It decays to an isotope of magnesium- which isn't a very common isotope.
If there was enough 26Al to melt Vesta then what happened on Earth?
It's about 25 times bigger so (for the same composition) that's a 25 fold higher power density at the surface.
That needs to be radiated off as heat.
Radiative cooling scales as the 4th power of the temperature.
So 25 times more power per square meter needs a temperature 25^ 0.25= about 2.3 times higher
Rocks- quartz for example- melt at about 1700C or 2000 K
And if the temperature of VEsta reached that, the temperature of Earth should have reached about 4500K

But quartz boils at about 2300C
So, if the heat generation in Vega was high enough to melt it, the temperature of the Earth should have been high enough to boil it.
We are here.
It didn't boil.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 20:52:54
Minerals with transition metals.

Which raises some further questions:

(1) How fast is the breakdown process? Is it faster than the rate that formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide can accumulate in them?

On Earth clearly. On an asteroid the conditions have to be just right to accumulate them. This can lead to a large Drake factor.

Quote
(2) Would all warm springs on Earth have necessarily had such minerals in them (at least in the quantities needed to destroy those organic molecules)?

Irrelevant.

Quote
(3) Why would your hypothetical satellite be exempt from having transition metal minerals in its same warm springs?

The springs would have required transition metal minerals for the protobiological reactions to work. We can tell which minerals these were from enzymatic cofactors. They are typical of hydrothermal deposits.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 12/05/2020 20:58:31
On Earth clearly.

Clearly, how? Can you support that statement?

Irrelevant.

How can it be irrelevant when that's the entire point of the discussion?

The springs would have required transition metal minerals for the protobiological reactions to work. We can tell which minerals these were from enzymatic cofactors. They are typical of hydrothermal deposits.

So let me get this straight. You claim that water plus transition metal minerals on Earth are bad because they cause the breakdown of hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde, while at the same time you claim that the presence of water plus transition metal minerals on your satellite is good because they allow for needed chemical reactions. Are the laws of physics different on your satellite or something? You can't have it both ways. If one is bad on Earth, it must be bad on your satellite. If it is good on your satellite, it must be good on Earth as well.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 21:16:06
Vesta was hot enough to melt. Its surface is igneous. There was a lot of radioactive aluminum-26 in the early Solar system.
OK, so it was bone dry.
And, like dry bones, devoid of life.


We all agree that Vesta has been devoid of life. The discussion, however, is on its former carbonaceous satellite.

There was a lot of radioactive aluminum-26 in the early Solar system.
Where from?

From supernovas.

Quote
Where did it go?

It decayed.

Quote
If there was enough 26Al to melt Vesta then what happened on Earth?
It's about 25 times bigger so (for the same composition) that's a 25 fold higher power density at the surface.
That needs to be radiated off as heat.
Radiative cooling scales as the 4th power of the temperature.
So 25 times more power per square meter needs a temperature 25^ 0.25= about 2.3 times higher
Rocks- quartz for example- melt at about 1700C or 2000 K
And if the temperature of VEsta reached that, the temperature of Earth should have reached about 4500K

But quartz boils at about 2300C
So, if the heat generation in Vega was high enough to melt it, the temperature of the Earth should have been high enough to boil it.
We are here.
It didn't boil.

More crackpot thinking - More heat mainly means longer cooling time.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 21:20:45
It decayed.
No
If it decayed then it made magnesium 26, but there's not much of that.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 21:21:48
its former carbonaceous satellite.
Remind me; what's the physical evidence for the existence of that satellite?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 12/05/2020 21:30:34
More crackpot thinking - More heat mainly means longer cooling time.

Longer cooling time, yes, but it also means that the object in question becomes hotter because heat is being produced at a faster rate than it can be radiated. That's how scaling laws work.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 21:38:15
its former carbonaceous satellite.
Remind me; what's the physical evidence for the existence of that satellite?


Spectra of Vesta and the moons of Mars in concert with carbonaceous meteorites and astrobiology.
It decayed.
No
If it decayed then it made magnesium 26, but there's not much of that.


The increase in magnesium-26 is how the initial amount of aluminum-26 is determined. Radioactive decay is very energetic so it does not take a high concentration of the isotope to heat up material.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 21:59:31
More crackpot thinking - More heat mainly means longer cooling time.

Longer cooling time, yes, but it also means that the object in question becomes hotter because heat is being produced at a faster rate than it can be radiated. That's how scaling laws work.

Notice that I used the word "mainly". Cooling time increases more than does temperature.

On Earth clearly.

Clearly, how? Can you support that statement?

Yes. It is true for any plausible early Earth atmosphere. I am not going to get into a long discourse on atmospheric models, however.

Quote
Irrelevant.

How can it be irrelevant when that's the entire point of the discussion?

Its irrelevant because the chemicals in question would be nearly completely destroyed before they got into any spring on Earth.

Quote
The springs would have required transition metal minerals for the protobiological reactions to work. We can tell which minerals these were from enzymatic cofactors. They are typical of hydrothermal deposits.

So let me get this straight. You claim that water plus transition metal minerals on Earth are bad because they cause the breakdown of hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde, while at the same time you claim that the presence of water plus transition metal minerals on your satellite is good because they allow for needed chemical reactions. Are the laws of physics different on your satellite or something? You can't have it both ways. If one is bad on Earth, it must be bad on your satellite. If it is good on your satellite, it must be good on Earth as well.

The difference is that the Earth has an atmosphere so we are talking about the whole planet while on the satellite we are just talking about the spring.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 22:03:25
astrobiology.
I asked for physical evidence.
Spectra of Vesta and the moons of Mars in concert with carbonaceous meteorites
Would you like to expand on that?
(I'm a spectroscopist, btw)
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 22:04:09
Its irrelevant because the chemicals in question would be nearly completely destroyed before
By what?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 12/05/2020 22:05:20
More crackpot thinking
I'm glad I made you think.
Now, do you plan to refute the maths?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 12/05/2020 22:25:27
astrobiology.
I asked for physical evidence.


Astrobiology includes planetary science.

Quote
Spectra of Vesta and the moons of Mars in concert with carbonaceous meteorites
Would you like to expand on that?
(I'm a spectroscopist, btw)

Both have anomalous spectra for their locations in the Solar System. Vesta has hydroxyl radicals. The moons of Mars have organic compounds plus Mars ejecta. These plus the orbits of the moons are indicative of the disruption of the satellite system by a close encounter with Mars.

Its irrelevant because the chemicals in question would be nearly completely destroyed before
By what?

By the class of reactions I mentioned.

More crackpot thinking
I'm glad I made you think.
Now, do you plan to refute the maths?

What maths? No one has presented a serious counterargument.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 13/05/2020 00:37:45
Yes. It is true for any plausible early Earth atmosphere. I am not going to get into a long discourse on atmospheric models, however.

Its irrelevant because the chemicals in question would be nearly completely destroyed before they got into any spring on Earth.

There aren't any transition metal minerals in the atmosphere and we've already agreed that water doesn't destroy them on its own. So what destructive mechanism are you talking about? I've found some sources that say formaldehyde can persist in the modern atmosphere with a half-life ranging from 1.6 hours to 160 days (depending upon the specific circumstances): http://www.inchem.org/documents/cicads/cicads/cicad40.htm Hydrogen cyanide has an atmospheric half-life of 1 to 5 years: https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxguides/toxguide-8.pdf

There would have been significantly less oxygen in the Earth's early atmosphere, so the atmosphere would have been less corrosive to those substances back when the Earth was primordial. Admittedly, the ultraviolet light due to a lack of an ozone layer could have been a problem, but that is at least partly alleviated for the night side of the planet. Or for reactions that take place below ground.

Then you have the option of carbonaceous chondrites delivering organic compounds directly into the Earth's crust via impacts. We know that organic molecules can endure such impacts (as the Allende meteorite has shown).

The difference is that the Earth has an atmosphere so we are talking about the whole planet while on the satellite we are just talking about the spring.

Would you like to enlighten me on:

(1) how an atmosphere has anything to do with whether or not there are transition metal minerals present, and
(2) how that answers the question of whether transition metal minerals are good or bad for the formation of life?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 13/05/2020 01:48:58
Yes. It is true for any plausible early Earth atmosphere. I am not going to get into a long discourse on atmospheric models, however.

Its irrelevant because the chemicals in question would be nearly completely destroyed before they got into any spring on Earth.

There aren't any transition metal minerals in the atmosphere and we've already agreed that water doesn't destroy them on its own. So what destructive mechanism are you talking about?

Any water in a spring on Earth or on a planet with an evaporative hydrological cycle will have gone through an aquifer which will have had transition metal minerals that catalyze organic reactions in general. Methyl formate is thermodynamically downhill from formaldehyde. This and cyanide will undergo hydrolysis from the water. They will undergo reduction by hydrogen which is ubiquitous in small amounts. The real situation is more complicated because a large range of organic chemicals will be formed with a tendency toward higher molecular weights. Chiral chemicals will be racemic, so will interfere with protobiochemistry.

When still in the atmosphere they will be oxidized if oxygen is present. Oxygen may be generated by the UV dissociation of water and escape of the hydrogen. If oxygen is not present, there will be no ozone so the low altitude UV creation of reactive molecules will be even more intense.

Quote
Would you like to enlighten me on:

(1) how an atmosphere has anything to do with whether or not there are transition metal minerals present, and

It doesn't.

Quote

(2) how that answers the question of whether transition metal minerals are good or bad for the formation of life?

They are necessary, but organic precursors need to kept dry until they get to the protobiological site.



Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 13/05/2020 02:07:43
Any water in a spring on Earth or on a planet with an evaporative hydrological cycle will have gone through an aquifer which will have had transition metal minerals

Why must that be so? Why must an underground water supply on Earth have those minerals but your satellite does not?

When still in the atmosphere they will be oxidized if oxygen is present. Oxygen may be generated by the UV dissociation of water and escape of the hydrogen. If oxygen is not present, there will be no ozone so the low altitude UV creation of reactive molecules will be even more intense.

You may not have seen my edit, but I addressed those in my prior post.

They are necessary, but organic precursors need to kept dry until they get to the protobiological site.

Which means the other mechanism I mentioned (carbonaceous chondrites delivering those materials to Earth) can still work.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 13/05/2020 03:20:37
Any water in a spring on Earth or on a planet with an evaporative hydrological cycle will have gone through an aquifer which will have had transition metal minerals

Why must that be so? Why must an underground water supply on Earth have those minerals but your satellite does not?

On an asteroid there can be two major systems of transport. One is a closed hydrological system with freezing at the top for desalinization and radioactive heating at the bottom for convection. This concentrates the inorganic elements necessary for biology at the top. The second system is surface transport by impact ejection and UV induced electrostatic levitation. The latter process is important for small particles that collectively have a high surface area for absorption of small reactive organic molecules. e.g., HCN and HCHO. If the top of an aqueous circulation system is in a topographically low area, it will be constantly being buried in this dust and having its supply of reactive organic molecules renewed. In the early heating era these molecules will have ultimately come from the Solar nebula where they will have been created by UV and ionizing radiation and shock waves.

Quote
When still in the atmosphere they will be oxidized if oxygen is present. Oxygen may be generated by the UV dissociation of water and escape of the hydrogen. If oxygen is not present, there will be no ozone so the low altitude UV creation of reactive molecules will be even more intense.

You may not have seen my edit, but I addressed those in my prior post.

I had not seen the edit. Thank you for supplying some real half-lifes. The concentrations will still be quite low since they will have been diluted by the atmosphere. Dust can supply concentration by thermal migration and storage for intermittent sources.

Quote
They are necessary, but organic precursors need to kept dry until they get to the protobiological site.

Which means the other mechanism I mentioned (carbonaceous chondrites delivering those materials to Earth) can still work.

Carbonaceous chondrites have already undergone the process of forming high molecular weight molecules that I described in my section on underground aquifers. Heating them to produce smaller molecules will produce mainly natural gas and coal - not useful for protobiology.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 13/05/2020 03:55:38
One is a closed hydrological system with freezing at the top for desalinization and radioactive heating at the bottom for convection. This concentrates the inorganic elements necessary for biology at the top.

Such a thing could also exist on Earth.

The second system is surface transport by impact ejection and UV induced electrostatic levitation. The latter process is important for small particles that collectively have a high surface area for absorption of small reactive organic molecules. e.g., HCN and HCHO.

So how do those molecules get into what you call a "closed" hydrological system?

The concentrations will still be quite low since they will have been diluted by the atmosphere.

Unless they are formed below the surface.

Carbonaceous chondrites have already undergone the process of forming high molecular weight molecules that I described in my section on underground aquifers.

Yes, things like amino acids, ribose and nucleotides (which are important for life). Ribose itself is a high energy molecule: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ribose-sugar-needed-life-has-been-detected-meteorites , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11542462 , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3161613/

Other simple organic molecules are known as well, such as acetone, acetaldehyde, and propionaldehyde: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/maps.13202

However, hydrogen cyanide can be found in meteorites: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/754/2/L27 The same can be said for formaldehyde: https://www.nature.com/articles/236155a0
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 13/05/2020 05:03:00
One is a closed hydrological system with freezing at the top for desalinization and radioactive heating at the bottom for convection. This concentrates the inorganic elements necessary for biology at the top.

Such a thing could also exist on Earth.

I do not know of a single case. One could easily tell if there were one by the saline minerals formed.They are unlikely to form because the evaporative hydrological system is so dominant.

Quote
The second system is surface transport by impact ejection and UV induced electrostatic levitation. The latter process is important for small particles that collectively have a high surface area for absorption of small reactive organic molecules. e.g., HCN and HCHO.

So how do those molecules get into what you call a "closed" hydrological system?

The protobiological site is really between the hydrological system and the layer of dust with the molecules. That volume presumably had its own circulation system of Halloysite nanotubes, because primitive conserved structure in biology matches that of Halloysite.

Quote
The concentrations will still be quite low since they will have been diluted by the atmosphere.

Unless they are formed below the surface,

They do not inorganically form below the surface. There is no plausible energy source.

Quote
Carbonaceous chondrites have already undergone the process of forming high molecular weight molecules that I described in my section on underground aquifers.

Yes, things like amino acids, ribose and nucleotides (which are important for life). Ribose itself is a high energy molecule: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ribose-sugar-needed-life-has-been-detected-meteorites , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11542462 , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3161613/

Other simple organic molecules are known as well, such as acetone, acetaldehyde, and propionaldehyde: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/maps.13202

However, hydrogen cyanide can be found in meteorites: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/754/2/L27 The same can be said for formaldehyde: https://www.nature.com/articles/236155a0

Thank you for providing links that support my model. Enantiomeric excesses in some of the stones in these meteorites show that their parent body was the satellite I have been talking about. Note that the author said it was "surprising" to find so much hydrogen cyanide because of its reactivity. This specifically supports my unconventional dust transport system.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 13/05/2020 06:06:59
I do not know of a single case.

So I suppose you can point to a known case on an asteroid (or anywhere)?

They do not inorganically form below the surface. There is no plausible energy source.

This suggests that hydrogen cyanide can come from (or be formed by) hydrothermal vents: http://astrobiology.com/2019/01/origin-of-lifes-building-blocks-in-carbon-and-nitrogen-rich-surface-hydrothermal-vents.html

Enantiomeric excesses in some of the stones in these meteorites show that their parent body was the satellite I have been talking about.

How so?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 13/05/2020 14:14:28
What maths?

The maths you can't refute so you are pretending it doesn't exist.
If there was enough 26Al to melt Vesta then what happened on Earth?
It's about 25 times bigger so (for the same composition) that's a 25 fold higher power density at the surface.
That needs to be radiated off as heat.
Radiative cooling scales as the 4th power of the temperature.
So 25 times more power per square meter needs a temperature 25^ 0.25= about 2.3 times higher
Rocks- quartz for example- melt at about 1700C or 2000 K
And if the temperature of VEsta reached that, the temperature of Earth should have reached about 4500K

But quartz boils at about 2300C
So, if the heat generation in Vega was high enough to melt it, the temperature of the Earth should have been high enough to boil it.
We are here.
It didn't boil.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 13/05/2020 14:19:30
Vesta has hydroxyl radicals.
So has interstellar space.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/157/3791/881
And so has Earth.
So their presence on Vesta is nothing special.

The moons of Mars have organic compounds plus Mars ejecta. These plus the orbits of the moons are indicative of the disruption of the satellite system by a close encounter with Mars.
So, there is some evidence that something hit Mars.

But your evidence is just as much supportive of an alien spaceship as it is of a satellite of Vesta.
I'm not saying it was aliens- I'm just pointing out that it could have been anything.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 13/05/2020 19:22:40
I do not know of a single case.

So I suppose you can point to a known case on an asteroid (or anywhere)?

My complaint about your epistemology is that you are stopping progress by bringing up hypotheticals that are unknown in a highly studied environment. You then turn around and assert that if they are excluded from the highly studied environment they also must be excluded from a little studied environment of radically different character.

Quote
They do not inorganically form below the surface. There is no plausible energy source.

This suggests that hydrogen cyanide can come from (or be formed by) hydrothermal vents: http://astrobiology.com/2019/01/origin-of-lifes-building-blocks-in-carbon-and-nitrogen-rich-surface-hydrothermal-vents.html

You score one point for finding someone who thinks it is plausible, Given the lax requirements on probability of most of today's science papers such a thing is not too difficult. He assumes a hypothetical nitrogen rich magma without showing why it should exist. It is not based on the many studied hydrothermal vents. The comments express skepticism to its relevance. The basic objection is that quenching the HCN solution in the ocean would dilute it.


Quote from: larens link=tpic=79178.msg603423#msg603423 date=1589342580
Enantiomeric excesses in some of the stones in these meteorites show that their parent body was the satellite I have been talking about.

How so?
[/quote]

Well technically life could have colonized another carbonaceous chondritic body. I was using Occam's razor. I have already addresses the issue of why life started on a satellite of Vesta.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 13/05/2020 19:42:48
My complaint about your epistomology is that you are stopping progress by bring up hypotheticals that are unknown
What?
Like an unevinced extinct satellite of a distant rock?

My complaint, on the other hand, is that you can't spell epistemology
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 13/05/2020 19:46:01
Enantiomeric excesses in some of the stones in these meteorites show that their parent body was the satellite
Anything with quartz in it contains enantiomeric stone.
It is certainly not rare.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 13/05/2020 19:54:26
You score one point for finding someone who thinks it is plausible,
OK, so you can't count.
Two authors
Paul B Rimmer, Oliver Shorttle
think it's plausible, the editor must have, and so do I.

I'm not saying I think much of the journal...
But the chemistry is plausible.
And if your molten Vesta's  satellite is allowed to have nitrogen, so is his magma.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 13/05/2020 20:14:27
What maths?

The maths you can't refute so you are pretending it doesn't exist.

You still don't present me with a significant counterexample. Your scaling laws on the cooling time of planets is completed out of line, because cooling time is dominated by thermal conductivity, not radiation.

Vesta has hydroxyl radicals.
So has interstellar space.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/157/3791/881
And so has Earth.
So their presence on Vesta is nothing special.

Except that Vesta is an igneous body without an atmosphere.

Quote
The moons of Mars have organic compounds plus Mars ejecta. These plus the orbits of the moons are indicative of the disruption of the satellite system by a close encounter with Mars.
So, there is some evidence that something hit Mars.

But your evidence is just as much supportive of an alien spaceship as it is of a satellite of Vesta.
I'm not saying it was aliens- I'm just pointing out that it could have been anything.


My complaint against your epistemology is similar to that with Kryptid. You stop progress by bringing up improbable hypotheticals. In this case you have gone on to explicitly assert hypotheticals in the abstract.

Enantiomeric excesses in some of the stones in these meteorites show that their parent body was the satellite
Anything with quartz in it contains enantiomeric stone.
It is certainly not rare.

Rocks with many independent quartz crystals, however, do not show enantiomeric excesses of biological chirality.

You score one point for finding someone who thinks it is plausible,
OK, so you can't count.
Two authors
Paul B Rimmer, Oliver Shorttle
think it's plausible, the editor must have, and so do I.

I only allow one point per article. With the large collection of people associated with today's articles it would be too hard to count otherwise.

Quote
And if your molten Vesta's  satellite is allowed to have nitrogen, so is his magma.

Wow! - Extending the nitrogen concentration of a never melted body to one that has been.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 13/05/2020 21:40:03
because cooling time is dominated by thermal conductivity, not radiation.
Really?
Why?
Is it, in part,  because the heat generation process is slow?
What would happen if, instead of the billion year timescale of uranium, thorium and potassium, it was due to the million year timescale of 26Al ?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 13/05/2020 21:40:46
I only allow one point per article. With the large collection of people associated with today's articles it would be too hard to count otherwise.
Obviously, counting as far as two is a problem for some people.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 13/05/2020 23:02:34
because cooling time is dominated by thermal conductivity, not radiation.
Really?
Why?
Is it, in part,  because the heat generation process is slow?
What would happen if, instead of the billion year timescale of uranium, thorium and potassium, it was due to the million year timescale of 26Al ?

No, it is because the diffusion time associated with thermal conductivity is much longer than the lifetime of the planet. Going to the timescale of 26Al and a smaller planet will leave the situation basically the same.

I only allow one point per article. With the large collection of people associated with today's articles it would be too hard to count otherwise.
Obviously, counting as far as two is a problem for some people.

You mentioned the editor and yourself. I could have looked up how many editors there were, but I would not have known that you had read it before you told me.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 13/05/2020 23:13:32
My complaint about your epistemology is that you are stopping progress by bring up hypotheticals that are unknown in a highly studied environment.

There are quite a few areas of Earth that are not well studied, especially underground. Just how much of Antarctica's subsurface has been explored? Then you have to consider that such a hypothetical system would have necessarily existed at least 3.5 billion years ago and thus may no longer be around. I'm not ruling out such a system on an asteroid, but I'm also not ruling it out of the Earth's deep past. It's different to say that such a system could exist on an asteroid and that it probably existed on an asteroid.

You score one point for finding someone who thinks it is plausible,

If you're counting points for scientists who think life started on Earth, then I could earn an awful lot of points if I went looking for names. If there are biochemists (people who actually know how the chemistry of life works as their job) who think life originating on Earth is plausible, then I would tend to think that it is plausible.

He assumes a hypothetical nitrogen rich magma without showing why it should exist.

He speaks on that in his paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.08542 The gist seems to be that an accumulation of nitrogen over time in our atmosphere could be evidence of outgassing of nitrogen from magma billions of years ago.

The basic objection is that quenching the HCN solution in the ocean would dilute it.

A surface hydrothermal vent need not expel its contents into an ocean.

Well technically life could have colonized another carbonaceous chondritic body. I was using Occam's razor. I have already addresses the issue of why life started on a satellite of Vesta.

Those organic substances (particularly nucleobases) have been found in a wide variety of different meteorites belonging to different groups. Amino acids were found in both the Murchison and Allende meteorites, which belong to different groups as well. Without any good evidence to link them together, it's unlikely that they all originated from the same parent body.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 14/05/2020 02:50:58
My complaint about your epistemology is that you are stopping progress by bringing up hypotheticals that are unknown in a highly studied environment.

There are quite a few areas of Earth that are not well studied, especially underground. Just how much of Antarctica's subsurface has been explored? Then you have to consider that such a hypothetical system would have necessarily existed at least 3.5 billion years ago and thus may no longer be around. I'm not ruling out such a system on an asteroid, but I'm also not ruling it out of the Earth's deep past. It's different to say that such a system could exist on an asteroid and that it probably existed on an asteroid.

Ice is melting at the bottom of  large glaciers, not freezing. Invoking the lack of knowledge of the Earth's deep past is again just invoking hypotheticals with no real support. On an asteroid there would definitely be freezing at night, because of the lack of atmosphere.

Quote
You score one point for finding someone who thinks it is plausible,

If you're counting points for scientists who think life started on Earth, then I could earn an awful lot of points if I went looking for names. If there are biochemists (people who actually know how the chemistry of life works as their job) who think life originating on Earth is plausible, then I would tend to think that it is plausible.

OK, follow the herd. They have never been good at assessing a radically new theory. In my next point I will show what type of flawed arguments they are willing to accept.

Quote
He assumes a hypothetical nitrogen rich magma without showing why it should exist.

He speaks on that in his paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.08542 The gist seems to be that an accumulation of nitrogen over time in our atmosphere could be evidence of outgassing of nitrogen from magma billions of years ago.


His determination of nitrogen from argon isotopes only says that originally it could not have been much greater than today. Lets forget that part. He says that the magma was "ultra reduced" and proposes that resulted from ingassing from the solar nebula. This ignores the fact that after the solar nebula dissipated, the Earth was in a collision that produced the Moon, melted again, and heavily outgassed. It also had ingassed He-3 from the nebula, but over 99% of that has since outgassed. Needless to say I find his argument very unconvincing.

Quote
The basic objection is that quenching the HCN solution in the ocean would dilute it.

A surface hydrothermal vent need not expel its contents into an ocean.

It will, however, have to exit into another body of water or will form a thermal plume that mixes it into the atmosphere. If might be reconcentrated in an endorheic lake, but with alI the minerals I want to see a plausible scenario where the reactive molecules survive long enough to be available for biochemistry.

Quote
Well technically life could have colonized another carbonaceous chondritic body. I was using Occam's razor. I have already addressed the issue of why life started on a satellite of Vesta.

Those organic substances (particularly nucleobases) have been found in a wide variety of different meteorites belonging to different groups. Amino acids were found in both the Murchison and Allende meteorites, which belong to different groups as well. Without any good evidence to link them together, it's unlikely that they all originated from the same parent body.

The enantiomeric excesses are what links them together. Differences in composition look like different stages in the development of the parent body. The meteorites are a mixture of different stones, probably from pebble accretion. Abiotic organic molecules are also found so that was going on in parallel.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 14/05/2020 04:36:27
Ice is melting at the bottom of  large glaciers, not freezing.

I didn't say anything about glaciers.

Invoking the lack of knowledge of the Earth's deep past is again just invoking hypotheticals with no real support.

The same could be said of your natural nuclear reactor on an asteroid. Mutations are not evidence for a reactor because mutations can have many different causes.

They have never been good at assessing a radically new theory.

So biochemists don't understand biochemistry? Okay then...

It also had ingassed He-3 from the nebula, but over 99% of that has since outgassed.

Helium is significantly more volatile than nitrogen. Nitrogen has also been detected from modern volcanic gases: https://phys.org/news/2020-04-tool-volcanic-eruptions.html And even minus naturally-sourced nitrogen, organic molecules delivered on carbonaceous chondrites (like the kind I've posted about before) can still supply a source for them on early Earth.

It will, however, have to exit into another body of water or will form a thermal plume that mixes it into the atmosphere. If might be reconcentrated in an endorheic lake, but with alI the minerals I want to see a plausible scenario where the reactive molecules survive long enough to be available for biochemistry.

Unless it happened in a spring without those minerals.

The enantiomeric excesses are what links them together. Differences in composition look like different stages in the development of the parent body. The meteorites are a mixture of different stones, probably from pebble accretion. Abiotic organic molecules are also found so that was going on in parallel.

And another possibility is that they look different because they came from different sources. Whatever you propose could cause enantiomeric excesses on your satellite could also cause them on other asteroids. Since that is a distinct possibility, then there is no particular reason to assume that they came from your hypothetical satellite.

Your argument rather reminds me of someone here earlier who was posting data of coal fly ash in the atmosphere as evidence for chemtrails. His hypothesis predicted the existence of coal fly ash in the atmosphere, and, when he found it, he claimed that this was support for his hypothesis that chemtrails exist. Yet coal fly ash is also produced by coal power plants. Thus, his data was not evidence that the ash came from chemtrails in particular. So results being consistent with a hypothesis are not necessarily supporting evidence for that hypothesis.

Likewise, although all of those meteorites coming from your satellite would be consistent with your hypothesis, they do not support it because there is no way of knowing that they didn't come from the other millions of asteroids that are out there (unless, perhaps, they all had identical isotopic ratios).
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 14/05/2020 06:29:47
Ice is melting at the bottom of  large glaciers, not freezing.

I didn't say anything about glaciers.

You asked about Antarctica. It is almost completely covered in a giant glacier.

Quote
Invoking the lack of knowledge of the Earth's deep past is again just invoking hypotheticals with no real support.

The same could be said of your natural nuclear reactor on an asteroid. Mutations are not evidence for a reactor because mutations can have many different causes.

Large increases in mutation rate are basically caused by chemicals or radiation. There is no reason to believe that the amount of mutagenic chemicals would increase greatly for a long period of time.The mutation age for Photosystem I, assuming a typical rate of mutation, is enormous - over 10 billion years. Cosmic radiation would not have been much larger, because both Earth and Mars had magnetic fields. Only a natural nuclear reactor is plausible to create such great mutation. It served another vital function - keeping circulation going between the end of major aluminum-26 heating and the hardening of the crust of Mars.

Quote
They have never been good at assessing a radically new theory.

So biochemists don't understand biochemistry? Okay then...

The large majority of biochemists study the biology of today. A minority studies the last 3.5 billion years. Only a few have tried to seriously understand the origin of life because there has been a scarcity of data and no good models. What you have mostly been getting is a lot of half baked speculation.

Quote
It also had ingassed He-3 from the nebula, but over 99% of that has since outgassed.

Helium is significantly more volatile than nitrogen. Nitrogen has also been detected from modern volcanic gases: https://phys.org/news/2020-04-tool-volcanic-eruptions.html And even minus naturally-sourced nitrogen, organic molecules delivered on carbonaceous chondrites (like the kind I've posted about before) can still supply a source for them on early Earth.

We are talking about hydrogen, not nitrogen. The author said that hydrogen is nearly insoluble in magma. If that statement is true, its outgassing rate should be similar to that of helium. Since that would kill his hypothesis, he just ignored the second molten stage of the Earth. Of course, I could also assume incompetence.

Is it not a much more reasonable hypothesis that the precursor chemicals in carbonaceous chondrites developed into life on their parent body, rather than having fragments fall on the Earth and having their chemicals diluted into the terrestrial environment?

Quote
It will, however, have to exit into another body of water or will form a thermal plume that mixes it into the atmosphere. If might be reconcentrated in an endorheic lake, but with alI the minerals I want to see a plausible scenario where the reactive molecules survive long enough to be available for biochemistry.

Unless it happened in a spring without those minerals.

A hydrothermal vent is far too hot for life. The life that lives near vents depends on large flows of oceanic cooling water. Around the vents are large deposits of transition metal minerals. The standard assumption is that somehow the zones near the vents become structured to produce life. They do not, however, have structurally interesting minerals for that, such as, clay.

Quote
The enantiomeric excesses are what links them together. Differences in composition look like different stages in the development of the parent body. The meteorites are a mixture of different stones, probably from pebble accretion. Abiotic organic molecules are also found so that was going on in parallel.

And another possibility is that they look different because they came from different sources. Whatever you propose could cause enantiomeric excesses on your satellite could also cause them on other asteroids. Since that is a distinct possibility, then there is no particular reason to assume that they came from your hypothetical satellite.

As I said before I am using Occam's razor. If forced by the data to admit that life spread from its initial location to other carbonaceous chondritic bodies, it would have essentially no effect on my model.

Quote
Your argument rather reminds me of someone here earlier who was posting data of coal fly ash in the atmosphere as evidence for chemtrails. His hypothesis predicted the existence of coal fly ash in the atmosphere, and, when he found it, he claimed that this was support for his hypothesis that chemtrails exist. Yet coal fly ash is also produced by coal power plants. Thus, his data was not evidence that the ash came from chemtrails in particular. So results being consistent with a hypothesis are not necessarily supporting evidence for that hypothesis.

The difference is that my model does not have an obvious alternative source. People keep claiming that the Earth is an alternative source, and I keep showing that hypothesis is only supported by half baked speculation. In his case one can just take a few photographs of coal plants.


Quote
Likewise, although all of those meteorites coming from your satellite would be consistent with your hypothesis, they do not support it because there is no way of knowing that they didn't come from the other millions of asteroids that are out there (unless, perhaps, they all had identical isotopic ratios).

There are not millions of alternative asteroids because they are basically too cold, barren, and/or small to have developed life.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 14/05/2020 09:06:46
Except that Vesta is an igneous body without an atmosphere.
Did you hear about the guy who opened a pub in interstelar space?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 14/05/2020 09:09:09
There are not millions of alternative asteroids because they are basically too cold, barren, and/or small to have developed life.
To be a satellite of Vesta, the place you have in mind must have been smaller than Vesta- with in principle- practically no lower limit in size.

How come it isn't "too cold, barren, and/or small to have developed life."?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 14/05/2020 17:51:23
There are not millions of alternative asteroids because they are basically too cold, barren, and/or small to have developed life.
To be a satellite of Vesta, the place you have in mind must have been smaller than Vesta- with in principle- practically no lower limit in size.

How come it isn't "too cold, barren, and/or small to have developed life."?

Because at the time it was inside the orbit of Mars, made of carbonaceous chondritic material, large enough to heat up enough to release water, and not so large that it melted. It was also orbiting Vesta which brought a lot of dust from the Solar nebula onto its surface.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 14/05/2020 20:11:05
inside the orbit of Mars, made of carbonaceous chondritic material, large enough to heat up enough to release water, and not so large that it melted.
Sounds rather like Earth.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 14/05/2020 20:23:28
You asked about Antarctica. It is almost completely covered in a giant glacier.

Today. Billions of years ago, that may not have been the case. A landscape need not be covered with a glacier in order to have sub-zero temperatures. It's not like Antarctica is the only place such a system could have existed.

The mutation age for Photosystem I, assuming a typical rate of mutation, is enormous - over 10 billion years.

What is this "Photosystem I" you speak of? "Typical mutation rate" doesn't have much of a meaning, given that mutation rates vary massively from one entity to another. The mutation rate of humans is far less than that of, say, HIV. How was that "over 10 billion years" date calculated? Please tell me they didn't:

(1) Assume that the very first organism contained a single nucleotide. Far more than that is needed.
(2) Assume that the mutations happened one at a time either. A large population of microbes will be able to have many total mutations in a single generation due to their numbers.
(3) Assume that each mutation caused the genome to change by a single nucleotide. Gene duplication can cause the introduction of many new nucleotides at once. Chromosomal duplication can do far more and entire genome duplication can double the size of the genome.

Only a natural nuclear reactor is plausible to create such great mutation.

Okay then. Show the math to support that claim. Also keep in mind that an excessive mutation rate is lethal for any organism.

The large majority of biochemists study the biology of today. A minority studies the last 3.5 billion years. Only a few have tried to seriously understand the origin of life because there has been a scarcity of data and no good models.

So you know more than those that do study it? Are you a scientist yourself of any kind?

What you have mostly been getting is a lot of half baked speculation.

Which is the same thing that you have been providing. You are speculating that Vesta had a satellite. You are speculating that it happened to have just the right conditions for life. The fact that Vesta has some organic material on its surface is not evidence that it ever had a satellite. Collisions from many smaller carbonaceous chondrites over time can explain that surface organic material just as easily as a collision from a large carbonaceous satellite can (same thing for Mars' moons). Even if there was a large carbonaceous chondrite in orbit around Vesta, there is no evidence whatsoever that it had life on it. To say that it did would be speculation (which, ironically, you don't seem to like).

We are talking about hydrogen, not nitrogen.

Since when? The article is about nitrogen-enriched magma.

Is it not a much more reasonable hypothesis that the precursor chemicals in carbonaceous chondrites developed into life on their parent body

When the parent body's characteristics are completely unknown? No. To say that it would have been would be, as you put it, "half-baked speculation".

rather than having fragments fall on the Earth and having their chemicals diluted into the terrestrial environment?

Whether or not they were diluted would depend upon where they landed.

A hydrothermal vent is far too hot for life.

The water need not stay in the vent. It could have periodically emptied into a shallow pool where it cooled over time.

As I said before I am using Occam's razor.

Occam's razor does not suggest that all organic molecules came from the same asteroid any more than it suggests that all of the trash beside the highway came from the same car.

The difference is that my model does not have an obvious alternative source. People keep claiming that the Earth is an alternative source, and I keep showing that hypothesis is only supported by half baked speculation. In his case one can just take a few photographs of coal plants.

It's half-baked speculation to claim that an object that we've never seen before just so happened to be the perfect abode for life to develop when no other spot in the Solar System could.

There are not millions of alternative asteroids because they are basically too cold, barren, and/or small to have developed life.

I didn't say anything about developing life. I was talking about producing organic molecules like ribose, amino acids and nucleotides. The conditions to produce those need not be anywhere near so perfect as those needed to create fully-fledged living things. Even liquid water need not be present. Studies have shown that amino acids can form in ice: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/513141 Same thing for ribose: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2083425-missing-building-block-of-life-could-be-made-on-ice-in-space/

Ice can support RNA replication: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1076

Because at the time it was inside the orbit of Mars

I'm curious to know what the evidence for this is.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 14/05/2020 21:23:43
inside the orbit of Mars, made of carbonaceous chondritic material, large enough to heat up enough to release water, and not so large that it melted.
Sounds rather like Earth.

Except that Earth is not made of carbonaceous chrondrites and it melted.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 14/05/2020 21:30:42
inside the orbit of Mars, made of carbonaceous chondritic material, large enough to heat up enough to release water, and not so large that it melted.
Sounds rather like Earth.

Except that Earth is not made of carbonaceous chrondrites and it melted.


What is magical about chondrites?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 14/05/2020 22:01:03
What is magical about chondrites?

Carbonaceous  chondrites contain organic chemicals important for the origin of like, e.g., hydrogen cyanide.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 14/05/2020 22:18:54
Carbonaceous  chondrites contain organic chemicals important for the origin of like, e.g., hydrogen cyanide.

Carbonaceous chondrites are still falling to Earth even today. So you'd expect plenty of them to have fallen to Earth in the distant past too. So Earth would have had those same substances.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 14/05/2020 22:37:57
What is magical about chondrites?

Carbonaceous  chondrites contain organic chemicals important for the origin of like, e.g., hydrogen cyanide.

And why don't you think that things like HCN would be present on Earth?
I know that HCN is not stable in the presence of water. (The hydrolysis  half life is about a year, but strongly pH dependent) But even today there is about 0.2ppb of it.
Before plants created oxygen there would have been much more- you have seen the famous experiments with sparks in jars full of gas. The principle means of removal from air today is oxidation.

And, as Kryptid pointed out, we receive a supply of these materials even today. More would survive the trip in the days before there was significant oxygen in the air.

So there is nothing "magical" about chondrites.


Even if chondrites contained "unobtanium"- impossible to get from anything other than chondrites, there would be "unobtanium" on Earth, brought here by chondrites.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 15/05/2020 01:32:39
You asked about Antarctica. It is almost completely covered in a giant glacier.

Today. Billions of years ago, that may not have been the case. A landscape need not be covered with a glacier in order to have sub-zero temperatures. It's not like Antarctica is the only place such a system could have existed.

You are going backwards in the conversation and becoming more like BoredChemist - hypotheticals in the abstract.

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The mutation age for Photosystem I, assuming a typical rate of mutation, is enormous - over 10 billion years.

What is this "Photosystem I" you speak of?

Photosynthesis uses two different biochemical systems that absorb different photons to raise the energy level higher.

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"Typical mutation rate" doesn't have much of a meaning, given that mutation rates vary massively from one entity to another. The mutation rate of humans is far less than that of, say, HIV. How was that "over 10 billion years" date calculated?

Humans are not in competition with the immune systems of their hosts. The authors used typical cellular genomics.

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Please tell me they didn't:

(1) Assume that the very first organism contained a single nucleotide. Far more than that is needed.

I am sure they didn't.

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(2) Assume that the mutations happened one at a time either. A large population of microbes will be able to have many total mutations in a single generation due to their numbers.
(3) Assume that each mutation caused the genome to change by a single nucleotide. Gene duplication can cause the introduction of many new nucleotides at once. Chromosomal duplication can do far more and entire genome duplication can double the size of the genome.

Standard genomics takes such things into account.

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Only a natural nuclear reactor is plausible to create such great mutation.

Okay then. Show the math to support that claim. Also keep in mind that an excessive mutation rate is lethal for any organism.

Evolution would have eliminated any such lethal rate caused by chemical or biological systems. The ability to cut down on the radiation induced mutation rate is limited though the most radiation resistant organisms have developed quite a tolerance. To get an idea of how damaging a nuclear reactor can be hang out in one for a while and see how long you live.

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The large majority of biochemists study the biology of today. A minority studies the last 3.5 billion years. Only a few have tried to seriously understand the origin of life because there has been a scarcity of data and no good models.

So you know more than those that do study it? Are you a scientist yourself of any kind?

Biochemists are suffering from cognitive dissonant propaganda backing the dogma that life on Earth started on Earth. This means they believe the dogma more strongly because the arguments for it are full of lethal flaws. This is well established psychology. I am an independent scientist so I can get around the groupthink. I read establishment articles and ignore the flaws except for understanding cognitive dissonance.

My specialty is the theory of general simplicity, i.e., using different types of simplicity to construct a general model of reality. For instance, today I am looking at how to derive the extended Standard Model of particle physics from pure math. The Higgs mechanism has a nice geometrical interpretation. Neutrino physics is giving me a hard time. With the help from empirical data I know that neutrino masses are in the ratios of 2, 18, and 98 to the mass of the axion. These geometrically must come from a pseudoscalar, 3-D space, and 7-D space-time-mass that includes the light cone, but I have not found an exact mathematical formulation.

In parallel I have been finding better and simpler explanations for the cubic equation x^3 + x^2 -2x - 1 = 0 which is about probability distribution scaling. It has to be factored out of the exceptional quantum mechanics observable so that there are not unrealistic probability nodes. You then get the 9 energy dimensions for matter with time running forward and backward being distinguishable. If you think this opaque, try A.A. Albert's original paper in 1965 on Albert division algebras. I found only one other paper on the subject, but it included the cubic equation above (which I had already determined was the correct one). The analysis led to some prize winning work in the UCB math department, so it confirmed that this approach was not tangential. Since then I have found a lot more compatibility with fundamental physics and general simplicity.

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What you have mostly been getting is a lot of half baked speculation.

Which is the same thing that you have been providing. You are speculating that Vesta had a satellite. You are speculating that it happened to have just the right conditions for life. The fact that Vesta has some organic material on its surface is not evidence that it ever had a satellite. Collisions from many smaller carbonaceous chondrites over time can explain that surface organic material just as easily as a collision from a large carbonaceous satellite can (same thing for Mars' moons). Even if there was a large carbonaceous chondrite in orbit around Vesta, there is no evidence whatsoever that it had life on it. To say that it did would be speculation (which, ironically, you don't seem to like).

You do not understand the nature of evidence. Using previously determined facts and reasonable assumptions one makes a coherent model with mutually reinforcing facts. If it large and coherent enough, it is taken as evidence for the assumptions. Most people are stuck at a Statistics 101 level of description of science or worse.

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We are talking about hydrogen, not nitrogen.

Since when? The article is about nitrogen-enriched magma.

The article with the details was about a "ultrareducing carbon-rich nitrogen-rich magma". It is hard to carry on a reasonable conversation when you do not read the technical details in the literature you cite. In this case you had to follow a secondary citation.

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Is it not a much more reasonable hypothesis that the precursor chemicals in carbonaceous chondrites developed into life on their parent body

When the parent body's characteristics are completely unknown? No. To say that it would have been would be, as you put it, "half-baked speculation".

Go back and read what I have been saying about model building and the nature of evidence.

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A hydrothermal vent is far too hot for life.

The water need not stay in the vent. It could have periodically emptied into a shallow pool where it cooled over time.

That pool would have been coated with the transition metal minerals that precipitate when you cool down vent fluid.

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As I said before I am using Occam's razor.

Occam's razor does not suggest that all organic molecules came from the same asteroid any more than it suggests that all of the trash beside the highway came from the same car.

It does, however, cut off endless tangents that have no relevance to one's model.

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The difference is that my model does not have an obvious alternative source. People keep claiming that the Earth is an alternative source, and I keep showing that hypothesis is only supported by half baked speculation. In his case one can just take a few photographs of coal plants.

It's half-baked speculation to claim that an object that we've never seen before just so happened to be the perfect abode for life to develop when no other spot in the Solar System could.

Why? It must have started somewhere. The requirement for homochirality, makes multiple sources unlikely. Half of the alternative sources would at first be toxic for any given source. The chemical evidence points to the unregulated production of L-polyserine as the means by which the first organism dominated. The evidence from fundamental science for the Unique Earth Hypothesis strongly points to there being just one very unusual location.

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There are not millions of alternative asteroids because they are basically too cold, barren, and/or small to have developed life.

I didn't say anything about developing life. I was talking about producing organic molecules like ribose, amino acids and nucleotides. The conditions to produce those need not be anywhere near so perfect as those needed to create fully-fledged living things. Even liquid water need not be present. Studies have shown that amino acids can form in ice: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/513141

Remember that this topic is about the origin of life. It is difficult to carry on a reasonable conversation when you repeatedly forget what the topic is and go off on tangents.

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Because at the time it was inside the orbit of Mars

I'm curious to know what the evidence for this is.

I am not going to repeat it again. I have already stated it enough times for those who remember things.

Carbonaceous  chondrites contain organic chemicals important for the origin of like, e.g., hydrogen cyanide.

Carbonaceous chondrites are still falling to Earth even today. So you'd expect plenty of them to have fallen to Earth in the distant past too. So Earth would have had those same substances.

Are you familiar with Gibbs free energy which is diminished when you dilute things?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 15/05/2020 02:20:31
You are going backwards in the conversation and becoming more like BoredChemist - hypotheticals in the abstract.

Your satellite is hypothetical, so we're in good company. Heck, you even call it a hypothesis:

The first phrase in my OP says that I am presenting an hypothesis.

A satellite is not necessary to explain the presence of organic material on Vesta, so other reasonable interpretations are valid.

Humans are not in competition with the immune systems of their hosts.

And? It's not like the first living things were anywhere close to being human-like. Nor would their gene-repair mechanisms have been nearly as refined. High mutation rates would be expected to be the norm.

The authors used typical cellular genomics.

Can you supply us with a link to this? If the 10 billion year figure is accurate, that would also be consistent with panspermia from an older star system. So then you'd need some kind of way to distinguish between your scenario and a panspermia scenario.

Evolution would have eliminated any such lethal rate caused by chemical or biological systems. The ability to cut down on the radiation induced mutation rate is limited though the most radiation resistant organisms have developed quite a tolerance. To get an idea of how damaging a nuclear reactor can be hang out in one for a while and see how long you live.

Are there any known organisms that can survive inside of an operating nuclear reactor? If so, what is their mutation rate?

Biochemists are suffering from cognitive dissonant propaganda backing the dogma that life on Earth started on Earth.

Yeah, once you start mentioning "propaganda" and "dogma", you know you're probably dealing with a crank. I hear the exact same kind of complaints about evolutionary biologists by creationists.

I am an independent scientist

So you're an actual scientist? What is your profession? What company do you work for?

My specialty is the theory of general simplicity

Theory? So it has been experimentally tested and passed?

You do not understand the nature of evidence. Using previously determined facts and reasonable assumptions one makes a coherent model with mutually reinforcing facts.

I'm well aware of what evidence constitutes. But when each individual point of "evidence" has an alternative possible explanation, then the model as a whole becomes weak. Organic material on Vesta can be explained by impacts of many smaller carbonaceous chondrites over time. Same thing for the satellites of Mars. The organic material on meteorites can be explained by organic material forming on a multitude of different asteroids involving UV-light acting on organically-contaminated ice. Whatever mechanism you propose could cause an enantiomeric excess on your satellite could do the same on other asteroids. If the high mutation rate did require a natural nuclear reactor, we know that those have existed on Earth in the past so that's not a problem. Since all of the evidence has plausible alternative interpretations, the "satellite of Vesta" hypothesis is relegated to just that: a hypothesis.

The article with the details was about a "ultrareducing carbon-rich nitrogen-rich magma". It is hard to carry on a reasonable conversation when you do not read the technical details in the literature you cite. In this case you had to follow a secondary citation.

And the point, of course, was that magma as a source of nitrogen is plausible. Hydrated minerals, water and/or methane is a decent enough source of hydrogen. And even if the magma didn't have enough nitrogen or hydrogen, meteorites bringing ribose, nucleotides and amino acids to Earth is another plausible source of those molecules.

Go back and read what I have been saying about model building and the nature of evidence.

All of your evidence can be explained in other ways.

It does, however, cut off endless tangents that have no relevance to one's model.

It also apparently cuts of alternative interpretations of the evidence.

Why? It must have started somewhere.

And, since you like Occam's razor so much, it would be better to look at places that we actually know exist than proposing those that can have absolutely any desired properties of the model-maker.

The requirement for homochirality, makes multiple sources unlikely.

Unless whatever causes homochirality is available at multiple locations. That being said, what mechanism do you propose caused homochirality on your satellite?

The evidence from fundamental science for the Unique Earth Hypothesis strongly points to there being just one very unusual location.

Which means that there would be two very unusual locations if your satellite produced life and the Earth then happened to have just the right characteristics to allow the life transported there to develop and thrive into an entire biosphere (including intelligent species) unlike anything we've seen in other places in the Solar System.

Remember that this topic is about the origin of life. It is difficult to carry on a reasonable conversation when you repeatedly forget what the topic is and go off on tangents.

So now you are saying that the chemical reactions needed to produce vital biochemical molecules is not "about the origin of life". Right...

I am not going to repeat it again. I have already stated it enough times for those who remember things.

You mentioned something about the organic material on the satellites of Mars as evidence for this, but it is just as possible that completely unrelated carbonaceous chondrites are the source of that organic material. So your claim that this is evidence that Vesta came from the inner Solar System is not compelling.

Are you familiar with Gibbs free energy which is diminished when you dilute things?

Yes, I am familiar with the concept. But that would only be a problem if it's diluted too much. Reservoirs of water come in all sizes.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 15/05/2020 02:36:52
Carbonaceous  chondrites contain organic chemicals important for the origin of like, e.g., hydrogen cyanide.
And why don't you think that things like HCN would be present on Earth?
I know that HCN is not stable in the presence of water. (The hydrolysis  half life is about a year, but strongly pH dependent) But even today there is about 0.2ppb of it.
Before plants created oxygen there would have been much more- you have seen the famous experiments with sparks in jars full of gas. The principle means of removal from air today is oxidation.

Plants and industry also produce most of the HCN whose concentration in the air is currently orders of magnitude below what one needs for a decent chemical reaction. The crust of the early Earth had a neutral redox potential that would have produced very little HCN. I pointed out to Kryptid the flaw in the article claiming otherwise.

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Even if chondrites contained "unobtanium"- impossible to get from anything other than chondrites, there would be "unobtanium" on Earth, brought here by chondrites.

Again as I pointed out to Kryptid, bringing it to Earth rather than using it on location would only dilute it.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 15/05/2020 05:53:17
You are going backwards in the conversation and becoming more like BoredChemist - hypotheticals in the abstract.

Your satellite is hypothetical, so we're in good company. Heck, you even call it a hypothesis:

My hypotheticals are not in the abstract because I provide evidence for them.

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The first phrase in my OP says that I am presenting an hypothesis.

A satellite is not necessary to explain the presence of organic material on Vesta, so other reasonable interpretations are valid.

The evidence is for hydrated surface minerals on Vesta, not organic material. It was a surprising find, because it has not been seen on other dehydrated Solar system bodies.

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Humans are not in competition with the immune systems of their hosts.

And? It's not like the first living things were anywhere close to being human-like. Nor would their gene-repair mechanisms have been nearly as refined. High mutation rates would be expected to be the norm.

Biological photon absorption for photosynthesis was a later system after gene-repair organisms had been refined. Early photon absorption would have been by titania.

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The authors used typical cellular genomics.

Can you supply us with a link to this? If the 10 billion year figure is accurate, that would also be consistent with panspermia from an older star system. So then you'd need some kind of way to distinguish between your scenario and a panspermia scenario.

I am not going to supply you with a link when you make a post with 18 mostly irrelevant points. You can always use a search engine.

Interstellar panspermia scenarios are dead because high vacuum destroys RNA with a half-life of a few years, Even with a high vacuum seal interstellar temperatures will freeze all water vapor. Ionizing radiation can provide the necessary excitation.

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Evolution would have eliminated any such lethal rate caused by chemical or biological systems. The ability to cut down on the radiation induced mutation rate is limited though the most radiation resistant organisms have developed quite a tolerance. To get an idea of how damaging a nuclear reactor can be hang out in one for a while and see how long you live.

Are there any known organisms that can survive inside of an operating nuclear reactor? If so, what is their mutation rate?

Not in the core. Some can survive on the periphery. I am not sure about their mutation rate. They have very good gene repair mechanisms.

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Biochemists are suffering from cognitive dissonant propaganda backing the dogma that life on Earth started on Earth.

Yeah, once you start mentioning "propaganda" and "dogma", you know you're probably dealing with a crank. I hear the exact same kind of complaints about evolutionary biologists by creationists.

The Discovery Institute has some very valid arguments about how the biologists who want to extend evolution back to the origin of life have not come up with a plausible model. "Progresssives" are in denial about how their side also uses fallacious propaganda and dogma. Their mechanisms of denial are quite similar to what I have been experiencing on this forum. The words are standard among philosophical people who take a more objective look at the situation.

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I am an independent scientist

So you're an actual scientist? What is your profession? What company do you work for?

If you really understood science, you would have been aware by the nature of my arguments. I told you my profession in the reply from which you are quoting. Why would an independent scientist be working for a company, other perhaps than one of his own creation? I have a shell called Genesis Project, because it is necessary for some interactions.

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My specialty is the theory of general simplicity

Theory? So it has been experimentally tested and passed?

It has been been repeatedly tested by new articles confirming it. I am still eliminating some errors, but that is par for the course. I have described a couple of new experiments that might be performed, which I gave in my first topic on this forum and of which you should be aware. My interest in understanding neutrino physics well is that there is a lack of a good overall model and new data is constantly being produced. Other than predicting new data there my option is to be like Einstein and convince people with the elegance of how my theory explains existing data. I understand generally how string theory fits into my theory, but there I am facing a community where they have not required experimental verification and might not like their dogma being run over. Succeeding there would require highly polishing my explanation of the cubic polynomial and how it explains the failure of string theory to produce results that reasonable connect with the rest of physics.

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You do not understand the nature of evidence. Using previously determined facts and reasonable assumptions one makes a coherent model with mutually reinforcing facts.

I'm well aware of what evidence constitutes. But when each individual point of "evidence" has an alternative possible explanation, then the model as a whole becomes weak. Organic material on Vesta can be explained by impacts of many smaller carbonaceous chondrites over time. Same thing for the satellites of Mars. The organic material on meteorites can be explained by organic material forming on a multitude of different asteroids involving UV-light acting on organically-contaminated ice. Whatever mechanism you propose could cause an enantiomeric excess on your satellite could do the same on other asteroids. If the high mutation rate did require a natural nuclear reactor, we know that those have existed on Earth in the past so that's not a problem. Since all of the evidence has plausible alternative interpretations, the "satellite of Vesta" hypothesis is relegated to just that: a hypothesis.

They are only plausible to you because you are not an expert in the field. My standard for plausibility is much higher. It is higher than the general standards for scientific publication in my specialties. I have already pointed this out.

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The article with the details was about a "ultrareducing carbon-rich nitrogen-rich magma". It is hard to carry on a reasonable conversation when you do not read the technical details in the literature you cite. In this case you had to follow a secondary citation.

And the point, of course, was that magma as a source of nitrogen is plausible. Hydrated minerals, water and/or methane is a decent enough source of hydrogen. And even if the magma didn't have enough nitrogen or hydrogen, meteorites bringing ribose, nucleotides and amino acids to Earth is another plausible source of those molecules.

HCN needs a relatively high fugacity for molecular H, C, and N. He was assuming a fugacity for H that was much too high. Methane has a relatively low H fugacity. Electrical discharges in the atmosphere might overcome that, but it is rapidly decomposed by UV. I have already dealt with the fugacity of your other proposed sources under the term "concentration".

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Go back and read what I have been saying about model building and the nature of evidence.

All of your evidence can be explained in other ways.

Only if you have really low standards of evidence.

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It does, however, cut off endless tangents that have no relevance to one's model.

It also apparently cuts of alternative interpretations of the evidence.

Not at all, I am only using it to cut off irrelevant tangents.

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Why? It must have started somewhere.

And, since you like Occam's razor so much, it would be better to look at places that we actually know exist than proposing those that can have absolutely any desired properties of the model-maker.

Well lets take an historical example of how long science tries to verify something that has not yet been verified. The Higgs boson was proposed in 1964. It was experimentally verified about a half century later in about 2014.

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The requirement for homochirality, makes multiple sources unlikely.

Unless whatever causes homochirality is available at multiple locations. That being said, what mechanism do you propose caused homochirality on your satellite?

You are missing the point that homochirality comes in two interfering forms. I already said that the biological type came with the unregulated production of L-polyserine.

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The evidence from fundamental science for the Unique Earth Hypothesis strongly points to there being just one very unusual location.

Which means that there would be two very unusual locations if your satellite produced life and the Earth then happened to have just the right characteristics to allow the life transported there to develop and thrive into an entire biosphere (including intelligent species) unlike anything we've seen in other places in the Solar System.

Correct. Its good to agree with you once in a while. We have also not seen evidence for it elsewhere in the universe.

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Remember that this topic is about the origin of life. It is difficult to carry on a reasonable conversation when you repeatedly forget what the topic is and go off on tangents.

So now you are saying that the chemical reactions needed to produce vital biochemical molecules is not "about the origin of life". Right...

You were not talking about vital molecules. You were talking about abiotic racemic molecules.

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I am not going to repeat it again. I have already stated it enough times for those who remember things.

You mentioned something about the organic material on the satellites of Mars as evidence for this, but it is just as possible that completely unrelated carbonaceous chondrites are the source of that organic material. So your claim that this is evidence that Vesta came from the inner Solar System is not compelling.

It is improbable that other carbonaceous chondritic material would appear at that location in those orbits. The moons are quite anomalous.

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Are you familiar with Gibbs free energy which is diminished when you dilute things?

Yes, I am familiar with the concept. But that would only be a problem if it's diluted too much. Reservoirs of water come in all sizes.

Cooling ponds have to be large enough to supply the necessary cooling.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 15/05/2020 08:42:59
- hypotheticals in the abstract.
No.
You really have to stop complaining about us mentioning "hypotheticals", when you are talking about a rock that doesn't exist.
Sauce for the goose...
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 15/05/2020 16:12:03
- hypotheticals in the abstract.
No.
You really have to stop complaining about us mentioning "hypotheticals", when you are talking about a rock that doesn't exist.
Sauce for the goose...

Albert Einstein doesn't exist. I guess I have to stop talking about him.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 15/05/2020 17:30:22

With the help from empirical data I know that neutrino masses are in the ratios of 2, 18, and 98 to the mass of the axion. These geometrically must come from a pseudoscalar, 3-D space, and 7-D space-time-mass that includes the light cone, but I have not found an exact mathematical formulation.

My stated assignment to space-time-mass is wrong because time cannot be included. The proper neutrino assignment is the mass dimension, 3-D space, and the light cone. This is consistent with the color flavors of the neutrinos. The squares within the masses correspond to the imaginary dimensions of real division algebras, i.e., complex numbers, quaternions, and octonions. They have to be squared to get real numbers for masses. The common factor of 2 comes from the bidirectionality of lines, which appears in the fundamental cubic polynomial I gave: x^3 + x^2 - 2x - 1 = 0. Problems appear much clearer after I have slept a night on them.






Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 15/05/2020 18:06:35
- hypotheticals in the abstract.
No.
You really have to stop complaining about us mentioning "hypotheticals", when you are talking about a rock that doesn't exist.
Sauce for the goose...

Albert Einstein doesn't exist. I guess I have to stop talking about him.

OK, let's descent to playground level since that's what you want.
Here is a photograph of Einstein.

* Einstein.JPG (18.48 kB . 224x286 - viewed 2832 times)
Please post a photo of your rock.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 15/05/2020 19:01:37
- hypotheticals in the abstract.
No.
You really have to stop complaining about us mentioning "hypotheticals", when you are talking about a rock that doesn't exist.
Sauce for the goose...

Albert Einstein doesn't exist. I guess I have to stop talking about him.

OK, let's descent to playground level since that's what you want.
Here is a photograph of Einstein.

* Einstein.JPG (18.48 kB . 224x286 - viewed 2832 times)
Please post a photo of your rock.


Playgrounds are for having fun. Instead of responding to impossible demands I am having fun today surfing through physics and seeing how the many pieces I have learned over the years are unified by general simplicity. I was just reading about the history of the arrow of time problem. The simplest starting point for developing the theory is to point out that elementary arithmetic does not distinguish between forwards and backwards in time when applied to individual particles. We can solve this by dropping the axiom of associativity. The rest of reality then unfolds through the application of general simplicity. The clarification of neutrino physics that I mentioned in my last reply removed the last major conceptual problem blocking me from adopting a more relaxed attitude toward developing my theory.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 15/05/2020 20:30:32
Instead of responding to impossible demands
Backing up your allegation is impossible.
Maybe you shouldn't have made it.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 15/05/2020 20:43:52
Instead of responding to impossible demands
Backing up your allegation is impossible.
Maybe you shouldn't have made it.

What was impossible was taking a picture of an object that disintegrated before cameras were invented.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 15/05/2020 23:27:04
Instead of responding to impossible demands
Backing up your allegation is impossible.
Maybe you shouldn't have made it.

What was impossible was taking a picture of an object that disintegrated before cameras were invented.
Instead of responding to impossible demands
Backing up your allegation is impossible.
Maybe you shouldn't have made it.

What was impossible was taking a picture of an object that disintegrated before cameras were invented.
OK, so, swimming through treacle here... what evidence is there that the rock did exist (not might have existed, but DID exist)?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 16/05/2020 00:52:51
Instead of responding to impossible demands
Backing up your allegation is impossible.
Maybe you shouldn't have made it.

What was impossible was taking a picture of an object that disintegrated before cameras were invented.
Instead of responding to impossible demands
Backing up your allegation is impossible.
Maybe you shouldn't have made it.

What was impossible was taking a picture of an object that disintegrated before cameras were invented.
OK, so, swimming through treacle here... what evidence is there that the rock did exist (not might have existed, but DID exist)?

Let me ask a socioeconomic question. This forum is sponsored by the Naked Scientists, a capitalist organization of academics that are making money selling their services for presenting popular science. As good profit seekers they do not like competition. So they have set up a "New Theories" section promising that it is "On the Lighter Side" and new theories will not be forced to meet full academic standards. Instead their proponents are subjected to a couple of characters who repeatedly trash the discussion by asserting some version of, "You have NOT presented ANY evidence, because you have not considered all the infinite number of possible alternatives!" What is your cut of the action? If not, why aren't you maximizing your profitable activities?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 16/05/2020 01:09:07
What is your cut of the action? If not, why aren't you maximizing your profitable activities?

You think we're getting paid for this?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 16/05/2020 01:17:50
What is your cut of the action? If not, why aren't you maximizing your profitable activities?

You think we're getting paid for this?

No, more likely you are Manchurian Candidates brainwashed by cognitively dissonant academic propaganda.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 16/05/2020 01:20:41
No, more likely you are Manchurian Candidates brainwashed by cognitively dissonant academic propaganda.

Ah yes, brain-washing. I guess I should have gotten into the habit of wearing tinfoil hats.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 16/05/2020 01:49:19
No, more likely you are Manchurian Candidates brainwashed by cognitively dissonant academic propaganda.

Ah yes, brain-washing. I guess I should have gotten into the habit of wearing tinfoil hats.

Maybe you should get more into the habit of being a moderator and enhancing the discussion. When I replied to your question of "what was my profession?", you ignored my replies and just allowed BoredChemist to continue trashing the discussion.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 16/05/2020 04:08:14
Maybe you should get more into the habit of being a moderator and enhancing the discussion. When I replied to your question of "what was my profession?", you ignored my replies and just allowed BoredChemist to continue trashing the discussion.

I got tired of what appeared to be a fruitless effort. If you want to count that as besting me in the debate, feel free to. The research I needed to do in order to be a part of it was illuminating, however. So you have my thanks for that.

As far as Bored Chemist goes, I don't see how he has broken any of the rules.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 16/05/2020 05:58:52
Maybe you should get more into the habit of being a moderator and enhancing the discussion. When I replied to your question of "what was my profession?", you ignored my replies and just allowed BoredChemist to continue trashing the discussion.

I got tired of what appeared to be a fruitless effort. If you want to count that as besting me in the debate, feel free to. The research I needed to do in order to be a part of it was illuminating, however. So you have my thanks for that.

As far as Bored Chemist goes, I don't see how he has broken any of the rules.

I must say that the debate was also illuminating, especially when I followed the links you did supply. It showed me how deeply the dogma that Life on Earth started on Earth is protected by cognitive dissonance. This showed me that I must focus on general simplicity and let the origin of life be a secondary topic. It was, of course, fruitless for you to try to change my basic philosophy of science since it arises from practicing fundamental science with good results for decades. That Bored Chemist was not breaking the rules of the forum is a problem of the forum. So thanks for the insight.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 16/05/2020 06:03:21
It showed me how deeply the dogma that Life on Earth started on Earth is protected by cognitive dissonance.

To be fair, I am open to the possibility that life could have started elsewhere. I just have not seen sufficient evidence to convince me that it must have or must have not.

That Bored Chemist was not breaking the rules of the forum is a problem of the forum.

So which of his actions do you think should have a rule or rules barring it?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 16/05/2020 06:50:49
It showed me how deeply the dogma that Life on Earth started on Earth is protected by cognitive dissonance.

To be fair, I am open to the possibility that life could have started elsewhere. I just have not seen sufficient evidence to convince me that it must have or must have not.

In the spirit of the Lighter Side people need to be allowed to present there evidence without being presented with unreasonably high standards for evidence. Though there is going to be a struggle over epistemology, it should not degenerate into a fight. I welcome people explaining what they would consider convincing evidence, though they do not generally know.

Quote
That Bored Chemist was not breaking the rules of the forum is a problem of the forum.

So which of his actions do you think should have a rule or rules barring it?

Repeatedly asserting a position without presenting new evidence each time should be barred. Enforcing this rule would require finesse because people nearly always modify their position a little each time. People mainly need to be reminded how they are violating the rule. This could move to barring offending replies. Only in extreme cases should people be barred. Since you were also violating the rule, you would need practice in applying it. It would need to be discussed among the moderators to reach some type of consensus. Earlier on there were repeated changes in the format of the forum that tended to hide my posts followed by their revocation, so I am not sure of how much of a consensus there is now. I thought that you were one of the people protecting me.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 16/05/2020 07:26:46
In the spirit of the Lighter Side people need to be allowed to present there evidence without being presented with unreasonably high standards for evidence.

This forum has no official position when it comes to a standard for evidence (at least not in this section). Each individual member will have their own standard. It just so happens that the two main contributors to this thread (other than yourself) found your presented evidence unconvincing and thus disagree with you. It isn't our duty to protect anyone's ideas from criticism, only from unreasonable behavior like insults or threats.

Though there is going to be a struggle over epistemology, it should not degenerate into a fight.

I don't believe this thread has degenerated into a fight.

Repeatedly asserting a position without presenting new evidence each time should be barred.

I don't think I can agree with that. If an argument is a well-supported by the presented evidence, there is no need to bring new evidence to the table.
Enforcing this rule would require finesse because people nearly always modify their position a little each time. People mainly need to be reminded how they are violating the rule. This could move to barring offending replies. Only in extreme cases should people be barred.

I have seen other science forums that operate in this manner. The threads about new theories tend to get locked if their moderators deem there to be no good source of evidence presented. Sometimes the members are banned if they continue on this line. The Naked Scientists have generally been very lenient because we have allowed all kinds of crazy things to be posted here with questionable to zero evidence. Even here, however, I have seen cases where arguments run around in circles with nothing being accomplished until the thread was eventually closed by a moderator.

If you want to propose a change to our rules, feel free to send a message to an administrator.

Earlier on there were repeated changes in the format of the forum that tended to hide my posts followed by their revocation, so I am not sure of how much of a consensus there is now.

I was unaware of that. It could be potentially caused by a forum glitch. Feel free to report it to an administrator.

I thought that you were one of the people protecting me.

It wasn't any of my doing. I haven't altered any of your posts. The only time I do take action like that is to remove obvious spam (like companies or individuals setting up accounts solely to advertise) or to remove threads that are started by people who have been deduced to be ban-evaders.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 16/05/2020 09:20:29
It isn't our duty to protect anyone's ideas from criticism, only from unreasonable behavior like insults or threats.

Insults or threats are too high a standard a limit when dealing with harassment. It's generally repeated small events of incivility that ruin people's lives. I have gotten accustomed to this because I have had unorthodox beliefs since I was a child. It has taken quite a toll on my social life, however.

Quote
Repeatedly asserting a position without presenting new evidence each time should be barred.

I don't think I can agree with that. If an argument is a well-supported by the presented evidence, there is no need to bring new evidence to the table.

Think about that again. If a good counterargument is presented, the first evidence may not really be well-supported. It is incumbent on the first presenter to try to improve their body of evidence rather than just reasserting their first position.

Quote
The Naked Scientists have generally been very lenient because we have allowed all kinds of crazy things to be posted here with questionable to zero evidence.

So have I noticed. That is why I started posting here. I needed some type of online feedback, because Covid-19 had shut the UCB campus. On the first science forums I tried, my posts were immediately censored because they were too unorthodox. After a while here I stopped posting because people were not open enough to advanced fundamental science. After the abstract I had presented showed up in a general Internet search I returned to correct it, since it had an embarrassing error in it. I was surprised at the deluge of replies this triggered. I suppose I should not have been surprised. I have gotten thrown off at least one science forum for amateurs because I was too knowledgeable. I would restrict myself to professional forums, but they are generally closed to people who are not specialists.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 16/05/2020 20:27:57
Insults or threats are too high a standard a limit when dealing with harassment.

What else did you have in mind?

If a good counterargument is presented, the first evidence may not really be well-supported.

Hence why I said "if it is well-supported".
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 16/05/2020 21:10:03
Repeatedly asserting a position without presenting new evidence each time should be barred.
OK, stop repeatedly telling us that an entirely hypothetical satellite is the origin of life.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 16/05/2020 22:52:49
Repeatedly asserting a position without presenting new evidence each time should be barred.
OK, stop repeatedly telling us that an entirely hypothetical satellite is the origin of life.

You are the ones repeatedly bringing up the subject without consideration of evidence. I put the subject into the topic title so the discussion of the origin of life would be grounded with a specific location with specific solar radiation and specific solar nebula inputs. I then proceeded to present evidence, most of it only weakly dependent on that specific location. I lot of it was in rebuttal to the generally assumed location, the Earth. After I had shown that an asteroidal site was strongly preferable to a site on earth I could then show that a former satellite of Vesta  was the only asteroidal site strongly favored by the evidence. Since evidence is strongly interconnected, one has to choose some such structure to make the presentation coherent and efficient. Remember that the origin of life was specifically in the title.

Instead of allowing me to proceed laying out the evidence in the manner I thought best for putting together the entire model you demanded that I prove my specific location before tying down the evidence that supported it - a logical impossibility. Logical counterarguments need to attack points within the scientific model, not the presenters model of presentation. While the latter tactic may score points within a debating club, it does not within a scientific forum.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 16/05/2020 23:07:09

Insults or threats are too high a standard a limit when dealing with harassment.

What else did you have in mind?

People trying to force the order of discussion so as to make a logical and coherent presentation impossible. My last post to Bored Scientist addressed this specific  point. I also have made other points to you that you have not taken to heart.

If a good counterargument is presented, the first evidence may not really be well-supported.

Hence why I said "if it is well-supported".
[/quote]

That is a giant "if". With cognitive dissonance working most supposed evidence is not well-supported.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 16/05/2020 23:30:20
People trying to force the order of discussion so as to make a logical and coherent presentation impossible.

I don't see how that counts as harassment. Being illogical or frustrating is not necessarily being harassing. If you find it to be too much to deal with, there is supposedly some way to put a selected user on "ignore". I've never done it myself, so I'm not sure how to do it. If you want, I can research it.

That is a giant "if". With cognitive dissonance working most supposed evidence is not well-supported.

Then the veracity of the evidence itself can become the subject of debate.

I'm not looking to continue the debate, but I'm just throwing this out there for curiosity's sake: why not consider Ceres as a possible abode for the origin of life? It has plenty of organic material, water ice, and iron minerals. Why couldn't your water circulation system and natural nuclear reactor be present there? Or what about Hygeia, which also has ice and organic material?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 17/05/2020 02:02:34
I don't see how that counts as harassment. Being illogical or frustrating is not necessarily being harassing. If you find it to be too much to deal with, there is supposedly some way to put a selected user on "ignore".

Since most people were being too illogical or frustrating, I stopped posting for a while so that I could ignore everybody. Their motivations were unclear.

Quote
That is a giant "if". With cognitive dissonance working most supposed evidence is not well-supported.

Then the veracity of the evidence itself can become the subject of debate.

I was debating the veracity of the evidence.

I do not think that people are understanding my comments about cognitive dissonance so I will give a little on the philosophy of science. Every model is a simplification of reality so has a domain of applicability, beyond which it gives bad results. To work with a model and make the effort of detailing it one needs to make a commitment to it. This means ignoring information coming from beyond the domain of applicability. This information sets up cognitive dissonance. One has to set a threshold of tolerance to it, such that the threshold being exceeded is a warning that one is at or near the boundary. One may then adopt a new paradigm and enlarge the boundary within which one is working. It requires much effort, however, to learn or create a new paradigm, including the principles of correspondence with the paradigm of the old domain. As a scientific paradigm matures there are more and more people in the domain and they must spread out to near the boundary to have a niche of their own. For most people adopting a new paradigm is too hard so they are likely to cross the boundary and get bad results. This, however, tends to corrupt the entire community of followers of the old paradigm as they raise their thresholds and lower their standards so as to not lose members.

Creative people have much greater thresholds of tolerance for contradiction so they are able to work near the boundary, understand the nature of the contradictions, and create a new paradigm. Their telling people that there is a new paradigm is a new form of cognitive dissonance.  Since the community has raised its threshold in the meantime, the new paradigm is generally ignored or explained away with internally contradictory arguments. This protects people from having to make the effort to adopt the new paradigm, but sets up positive feedback in raising the cognitive dissonance threshold higher. Eventually something will break, but not before a core group of creative people figure out how to explain the new paradigm, including its principles of correspondence, simply enough to be able to recruit a critical mass of new recruits and resources.

Because it has been 75 years since the post-World War II influx of greater scientific resources, most basic scientific disciplines have reached a high state of maturity in their current paradigms. For 50 years physics has mainly seen refinements on what was developed in the previous 25 years. It is now in a highly metastable state. To break through this quandary I need to reach a critical mass by concentrating on simple arguments to recruit a few creative people well skilled in conventional mathematics and physics and with the necessary resources. They can then do enough of the more difficult principles of correspondence to lower the barrier to acceptance by the larger community. This may require a few unusual people who can help communicate the simple arguments widely enough to reach the necessary number of creative people willing to detail the necessary number of principles of correspondence. The numbers for what is necessary is an open question.


Quote
I'm not looking to continue the debate, but I'm just throwing this out there for curiosity's sake: why not consider Ceres as a possible abode for the origin of life? It has plenty of organic material, water ice, and iron minerals. Why couldn't your water circulation system and natural nuclear reactor be present there? Or what about Hygeia, which also has ice and organic material?

We can finish the debate right away. They are all too cold.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Colin2B on 17/05/2020 09:05:13
Earlier on there were repeated changes in the format of the forum that tended to hide my posts followed by their revocation, so I am not sure of how much of a consensus there is now.
Could you be specific about what happened? I am not aware of any format changes since you registered here, nor any revocation of your posts.
Have you posted here before using a different identity?

In the spirit of the Lighter Side people need to be allowed to present there evidence without being presented with unreasonably high standards for evidence.
If you look at the posts in this section you will find that it is rare for an OP to present any credible evidence for their assertions. This does not prevent any member questioning the validity of the assumptions and asking for evidence, and if that evidence is not forthcoming to repeat the request until it is provided.
As you will appreciate we do get some very outlandish claims without any supporting evidence eg last year a claim that a planet exists on the same orbit as earth, but on the opposite side of the sun, so never seen. I suspect that the title of this topic may be placing you into this category if the asteroid, or evidence for its previous existence, is not available.
I wonder if a general discussion on the likelihood of life originating on a nearby asteroid, and the conditions necessary for that to happen, might be be more productive.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 17/05/2020 09:49:35
Repeatedly asserting a position without presenting new evidence each time should be barred.
OK, stop repeatedly telling us that an entirely hypothetical satellite is the origin of life.

You are the ones repeatedly bringing up the subject without consideration of evidence. I put the subject into the topic title so the discussion of the origin of life would be grounded with a specific location with specific solar radiation and specific solar nebula inputs. I then proceeded to present evidence, most of it only weakly dependent on that specific location. I lot of it was in rebuttal to the generally assumed location, the Earth. After I had shown that an asteroidal site was strongly preferable to a site on earth I could then show that a former satellite of Vesta  was the only asteroidal site strongly favored by the evidence. Since evidence is strongly interconnected, one has to choose some such structure to make the presentation coherent and efficient. Remember that the origin of life was specifically in the title.

Instead of allowing me to proceed laying out the evidence in the manner I thought best for putting together the entire model you demanded that I prove my specific location before tying down the evidence that supported it - a logical impossibility. Logical counterarguments need to attack points within the scientific model, not the presenters model of presentation. While the latter tactic may score points within a debating club, it does not within a scientific forum.

I saw what you did, and it's a sensible approach.
However, it is building a rather tall house of cards.

Your job, if you want us to believe your idea, is that you need to disprove the "null hypothese "
(1) You have to show that life didn't start on Earth
(2) You have to show that it didn't start somewhere else in the Solar system  (I think we can agree that much further afield that that is impossible because radiation would destroy the DNA/RNA)

Until you have proved those, I'm going to continue to state the null hypothesis. And I recognise that there's no way I can do that without  saying "you are wrong".
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 17/05/2020 21:53:02
Your job, if you want us to believe your idea, is that you need to disprove the "null hypothese "
(1) You have to show that life didn't start on Earth
(2) You have to show that it didn't start somewhere else in the Solar system  (I think we can agree that much further afield that that is impossible because radiation would destroy the DNA/RNA)

I repeatedly pointed out that the concentrations of chemical precursors on Earth would be too low because of dilution and catalytic destruction.

I said that other asteroids would be too cold, which I take to be obvious, since one has to arrive at a biology with liquid water as the main solvent.

As for interstellar panspermia, dehydration is more destructive to RNA than is radiation alone. At ambient temperature in typical cells the RNA half-life in a vacuum is only a few years.

Quote

Until you have proved those, I'm going to continue to state the null hypothesis. And I recognise that there's no way I can do that without  saying "you are wrong".

My more concise proof is by general simplicity, which includes equal treatment in pairs of variables. The physical/social sciences pairing puts the origin of life at a neutral point in the middle. The periodic/chaotic pairing, not having someplace else to be, gets paired with the origin of life. Vesta and Ceres are the main bodies in clearly chaotic orbits because of their mutual gravitational interaction during close encounters. Larger bodies are in longer term periodic orbits. Life starting on a former satellite of Vesta breaks the Vesta/Ceres symmetry. This is the viewpoint from which I arrived at the topic.

To accept this viewpoint, however, requires understanding how general simplicity generates the mathematical description of reality starting from changing just one axiom of arithmetic, namely, associativity of multiplication. (Associative means the order in operating on 3 things does not matter; commutative means the order of operation on 2 things does not matter.) This allows past and future events to mutually cause each other, i.e., block time, while making the past and the future at the level of particles distinguishable.

Think about operations that generate steps in time.  Commutivity means taking one step forward in time, then one step backwards is the same as taking one step backwards, then one step forward - both leave you in the present. The past and the future are both involved, however, so mutual causality is allowed. It together with having a finite number of states and the principle of plentitude, i. e., you have to traverse all the states, allows the number of states to be mapped unto time intervals and allows constants in time, e.g., the Hubble constant for the expansion of the universe.

Adding one more step by nonassociativity adds another property. Taking one step forward in time, one step back, and finally one step forward leaves you one step in the future, which is the normal progression of time. This order, however, is different from one step back, then two steps forward, because the canceling pairs of steps are going in opposite directions. If this asymmetry were not present, we would not be here because the amount of matter and antimatter would be the same and they would annihilate each other.

While this approach is relatively concise, it can not be extremely concise because I would have to go on and explain a lot more, e. g., string theory and the Standard Model of particle physics for you to be thoroughly convinced of the validity of general simplicity. For the moment just remember that it is a paradigm shift reversing the order of priority between empiricism and rationalism in fundamental science. It is Platonic rather than Aristotelian.

Since you are a chemist, I will say that it changes chemistry by introducing quasicrystalline components in 3-D space projected down from 12-D hypercubic lattices. These come from data words of the 24-D extended binary Golay code so there is the illusion of separateness of matter and space-time-mass.


Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 17/05/2020 22:15:16
I repeatedly pointed out that the concentrations of chemical precursors on Earth would be too low because of dilution and catalytic destruction.
The problem with that is that you don't seem to have any idea what the concentrations might be.
And it's also  unfortunate that you are saying that hard radiation will generate HCN  and HCHO when, in fact, it will destroy them.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 17/05/2020 23:13:14
Earlier on there were repeated changes in the format of the forum that tended to hide my posts followed by their revocation, so I am not sure of how much of a consensus there is now.
Could you be specific about what happened? I am not aware of any format changes since you registered here, nor any revocation of your posts.
Have you posted here before using a different identity?

The New Theories icon and link disappeared from The Lighter Side menu and the New Theories list was reduced to one page. This happened more than once. By "revocation" I was referring to the changes being removed within an hour, not to my posts being removed. I have never posted here under a different identity.

Quote
I wonder if a general discussion on the likelihood of life originating on a nearby asteroid, and the conditions necessary for that to happen, might be be more productive.

If I had known the opposition to naming the specific asteroid I was to receive, I might have done that. As I explained in my last reply to Bored Chemist the specific location was important to my pursuing my research. Before the Dawn spacecraft visited Vesta I was thinking that an asteroidal location for the origin of life was likely, but I needed a specific location to know what its insolation was and what materials it received from the solar nebula. When I saw the announcement of the detection of hydroxl radicals on Vesta's surface, I immediately understood the scenario and proceeded to research the astrobiology.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 17/05/2020 23:25:23
 
[it's also  unfortunate that you are saying that hard radiation will generate HCN  and HCHO when, in fact, it will destroy them.

Take a look at the high fraction of HCN and HCHO generated by hard UV in the nebulas of molecular clouds. They can also be generated by harder radiation.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 18/05/2020 02:02:41
I would like to take another look at panspermia.

Oumuamua was an interstellar asteroid, and a pretty fast one (travelling at about 26 kilometers per second before it entered the Solar System). If we use that as an example velocity, then we can calculate how long it would take to travel one light-year. A light-year is 9.46 x 1012 kilometers, so:

Travel Time = 9.46 x 1012 kilometers / 26 kilometers per second = 3.64 x 1011 seconds
Travel Time = 3.64 x 1011 seconds / 60 = 6.06 x 109 minutes
Travel Time = 6.06 x 109 minutes / 60 = 1.01 x 108 hours
Travel Time = 1.01 x 108 hours / 24 = 4.21 x 106 days
Travel Time = 4.21 x 106 days / 365.25 = 11,529.5 years

I wrote those calculations out so that anyone can report errors if they find them. That sounds like a long time, but it's very short on a geological time scale. If an asteroid (or even a rogue planet) was large enough, its internal temperature should remain high enough to allow for the existence of liquid water even if it was away from a star. The idea here is that hydrothermal vents would be able to supply enough heat to create pockets of liquid water even if the surface of the rogue planet was frozen. Even 4.54 billion years after its formation, the Earth has enough internal heat left over to operate hydrothermal vents. So an ecosystem of chemotrophic microbes could presumably survive in this environment for billions of years.

So the scenario I'm looking at is this: life develops in another star system. Where or how can be the subject of speculation, but the idea is that it eventually ends up on a planet with hydrothermal vents and bodies of water. Once microbial communities become established on this planet, interactions with other planets in the system cause it to be ejected into interstellar space. The surface freezes, but subsurface water remains liquid due to hydrothermal vents. The ecosystems there survive. If we allow for a (conservative) travel time of one million years before the hydrothermal vents give out, then that would allow for a maximum distance of travel of 1,000,000 years / 11,530 years = 86.73 light-years.

There are quite a few star systems much closer than 86.73 light-years, including Alpha Centauri, Vega, Barnard's star, Sirius and Procyon. So I think it is plausible for life from another star system to reach us. The next step would then require impacts from asteroids in the Solar System to drive material from the rogue planet as it passed through our Solar System. Then those microbe-contaminated samples land in an ocean on Earth and life is jump-started here.

Improbable? Certainly.

Impossible? Hardly.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 18/05/2020 03:23:10
The next step would then require impacts from asteroids in the Solar System to drive material from the rogue planet as it passed through our Solar System. Then those microbe-contaminated samples land in an ocean on Earth and life is jump-started here.

Improbable? Certainly.

Impossible? Hardly.

I think that the problem of whether interstellar panspermia is significantly probable or improbable may be an intractable problem. It is easy enough to debunk the optimists. One paper I read assumed that a vacuum tight fusion crust had formed on a rock. The problem is that when the crust cooled it would be under tension so would fracture under the slightest impact. On the other hand there are so many possibilities that it is difficult or impossible to show that one has considered all the relevant possibilities.

General simplicity strongly supports the Unique Earth Hypothesis. That along with Fermi's Paradox works against interstellar panspermia being highly probable. Neither, however, prohibits the existence of there being some microbial colonies. The Anthropic Principle makes it difficult to determine the probability that it occurred with Earth.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 18/05/2020 08:30:25
Take a look at the high fraction of HCN and HCHO generated by hard UV in the nebulas of molecular clouds. They can also be generated by harder radiation.
Even a large fraction if a very good vacuum isn't much actual material.

You complain that it would be too dilute on Earth yet are happy to source it where there is nothing but "space".
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 18/05/2020 08:40:22
I would like to take another look at panspermia.
OK, lets have a look.
How does anything survive getting "launched"?
Throwing a rock through the atmosphere at escape velocity subjects it to conditions that look worse than reentry.

How come it doesn't get fried?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 18/05/2020 19:49:52
Take a look at the high fraction of HCN and HCHO generated by hard UV in the nebulas of molecular clouds. They can also be generated by harder radiation.
Even a large fraction if a very good vacuum isn't much actual material.

You complain that it would be too dilute on Earth yet are happy to source it where there is nothing but "space".

Looking at the photodissociation zones between nebulas and their molecular clouds gives one empirical data for modeling the chemistry of the Solar nebula when it got blasted by a beam of gamma rays from a neutron star merger. The solar nebula was orders of magnitude denser so got useful concentrations and fugacities of HCN, HCHO, and NS. These were absorbed onto smoke from the evaporation of rock. CN was absorbed onto transition metal atoms. The latter chemicals formed polymers on grain surfaces. HCHO mostly formed on surfaces, rather than in the gas phase. NS hydrolized  to ammonium sulphate, which is a grain aggregator and ferroelectric. (Half of the sulfur is also oxidized or reduced in the process.)

This dust was herded by light pressure, pebble dynamics, and electrostatic levitation to pile up over the asteroidal spring where liquid water activated the chemicals. HCN and HCHO formed polypeptides which were electrically separated through temperature variation of the ferroelectric. Many other reactions, of course, were going on in parallel.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 18/05/2020 21:00:01
You can have liquid water or you can have ferroelectric ammonium sulphate.
You can't have both. The ferroelectric transition is somewhere near -50C.
And I'm not convinced you can have liquid water until you have something big enough to have an atmosphere to stop it boiling off into space.
And once you have liquid water, and a dense atmosphere, you might as well be on Earth.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 18/05/2020 21:32:56
OK, lets have a look.
How does anything survive getting "launched"?
Throwing a rock through the atmosphere at escape velocity subjects it to conditions that look worse than reentry.

How come it doesn't get fried?

The outside presumably does get vaporized, but the inside can remain cold (at least if the meteorite is large enough): https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2012/12/13/what-makes-meteorites-so-hot-that-you-cant-touch-them/
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 18/05/2020 21:56:27
You can have liquid water or you can have ferroelectric ammonium sulphate.
You can't have both. The ferroelectric transition is somewhere near -50C.
And I'm not convinced you can have liquid water until you have something big enough to have an atmosphere to stop it boiling off into space.
And once you have liquid water, and a dense atmosphere, you might as well be on Earth.


In a 3:2 resonance orbit with the early Earth the average black body temperature was a bit above the ferroelectric transition temperature. With day/nighttime variation the transition point would have been crossed every day. The average noon time temperature would have been about 20 C, so the ice/water transition point would have also been crossed. The spring was radioactively heated, so there was a zone near the spring in which the temperature variation centered around 0 C thus making desalination by freezing, the concentration of boron, and water/formamide separation occur every day. Conditions were thus appropriate for the ribose reaction and the winding and unwinding of RNA and DNA.

The UV polymerization of alkanes provided a seal at the surface above the spring. When this was punctured by micrometeorites another layer formed as fluid permeated the dust that had accumulated above it. The new layer was temporarily self sealed by nonvolatile soluble materials. When vapor pressure lifted the layers, fluid spread to the edges and added to the layered area. Water vapor pressure was low because temperatures were near freezing. The hydrological system was thus self regulating.


Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 18/05/2020 22:00:25
You can have liquid water or you can have ferroelectric ammonium sulphate.
You can't have both. The ferroelectric transition is somewhere near -50C.
And I'm not convinced you can have liquid water until you have something big enough to have an atmosphere to stop it boiling off into space.
And once you have liquid water, and a dense atmosphere, you might as well be on Earth.


In a 3:2 resonance orbit with the early Earth the average black body temperature was a bit above the ferroelectric transition temperature. With day/nighttime variation the transition point would have been crossed every day. The average noon time temperature would have been about 20 C, so the ice/water transition point would have also been crossed. The spring was radioactively heated, so there was a zone near the spring in which the temperature variation centered around 0 C thus making desalination by freezing, the concentration of boron, and water/formamide separation occur every day. Conditions were thus appropriate for the ribose reaction and the winding and unwinding of RNA and DNA.

The UV polymerization of alkanes provided a seal at the surface above the spring. When this was punctured by micrometeorites another layer formed as fluid permeated the dust that had accumulated above it. The new layer was temporarily self sealed by nonvolatile soluble materials. When vapor pressure lifted the layers, fluid spread to the edges and added to the layered area. Water vapor pressure was low because temperatures were near freezing. The hydrological system was thus self regulating.



What's the atmospheric pressure here?
Do you know that ammonium sulphate is very soluble in water?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 18/05/2020 22:23:42
What's the atmospheric pressure here?

The atmosphere is a high vacuum. The gas below the seals is mainly methane.

Quote
Do you know that ammonium sulphate is very soluble in water?

Yes, that means it is deposited away from the spring and at a temperature near its ferroelectric point.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 18/05/2020 22:30:29
How come the seals survive the volume and pressure changes?
At 20C the vapour pressure of water is about 1/40 atmospheres or about a quarter of a tonne per square meter.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 19/05/2020 00:19:45
Is this the genetic study you were speaking about earlier? https://phys.org/news/2013-04-law-life-began-earth.html
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 19/05/2020 00:47:54
How come the seals survive the volume and pressure changes?
At 20C the vapour pressure of water is about 1/40 atmospheres or about a quarter of a tonne per square meter.

How come the seals survive the volume and pressure changes?
At 20C the vapour pressure of water is about 1/40 atmospheres or about a quarter of a tonne per square meter.

Because the organic seals are quite small. What you have is a lot of small grains stuck together with plastic.  Porous material can be quite strong. Think of foamed concrete. There are bubbles so volume change is not a problem. Because the interconnections are plastic, it also deforms well under impacts. Most of the water is just a few degrees above freezing. It would probably only reach 20 C fairly deep in the spring.

Is this the genetic study you were speaking about earlier? https://phys.org/news/2013-04-law-life-began-earth.html

The paper you cite is only a thought exercise which proves that you cannot extend Moore's law back that far. I probably referred to,"The physiology and habitat of the last universal common ancestor":   https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2016116
Unfortunately Nature is behind a paywall.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 19/05/2020 11:16:02
Who put the gas under the plastic?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 19/05/2020 11:19:38
Most of the water is just a few degrees above freezing. It would probably only reach 20 C fairly deep in the spring.
If all the water boils of "only deep in the spring" then it still all boils off.
At 0C the vapour pressure is still over a hundredweight to the square metre.
And if it has significant volatile organics in it, the pressure may be higher.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 19/05/2020 18:23:26
Who put the gas under the plastic?

Enthalpy. Methane is the product of exothermic reactions.

Most of the water is just a few degrees above freezing. It would probably only reach 20 C fairly deep in the spring.
If all the water boils of "only deep in the spring" then it still all boils off.
At 0C the vapour pressure is still over a hundredweight to the square metre.
And if it has significant volatile organics in it, the pressure may be higher.

If you put on your scuba gear and dive down to where it is 20 C, you will be able to see that there is enough pressure to keep it from boiling. Be sure to take your wet suit. It's pretty cold at the top. Also take a radiation meter. You are not as radiation tolerant as Deinococcus Radiodurans. Since you are bored, take along Fantastic Voyage with Raquel Welch as entertainment. Fortunately the community of Halloysite nanotube creatures at the top has learned how to regulate the nuclear reactor so that it does not create a geyser. They add chloride as a neutron absorber when they detect radioiodine. This is why we need iodine for our thyroid hormones to regulate our growth.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 19/05/2020 18:41:35
If you put on your scuba gear and dive down to where it is 20 C, you will be able to see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 19/05/2020 20:03:31
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 19/05/2020 20:27:10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger

This exchange makes me realize that a spring emerging into a vacuum is going to build up a cone of solutes whose weight will increase the pressure in the spring. A counter flow exchanger extending radially across the surface from the base of the cone will help maintain conditions at the peripherally - not only thermally, but also with fugacities. Heat piping within the cone can maintain high thermal conductivities to prevent thermal hotspots and blowouts in the exchanger area.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 19/05/2020 20:54:46
The paper you cite is only a thought exercise which proves that you cannot extend Moore's law back that far.

What is the proof?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 19/05/2020 21:27:44
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger
" used to transfer heat between two or more fluids. "
The two fluids are...?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 19/05/2020 21:29:55
fugacities
It's probably fair to say that , given that we are talking about very low pressures, you don't need to worry about activity coefficienst being far from 1 here.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 19/05/2020 21:37:59
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger
" used to transfer heat between two or more fluids. "
The two fluids are...?

Two aqueous solutions of different temperature and composition.

fugacities
It's probably fair to say that , given that we are talking about very low pressures, you don't need to worry about activity coefficienst being far from 1 here.

The solutes are in low concentration in the large majority of liquid so we don't need to worry about activity coefficients being far from 1 here either.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 19/05/2020 21:46:43
The paper you cite is only a thought exercise which proves that you cannot extend Moore's law back that far.

What is the proof?

The proof, which is probabilistic as are all scientific proofs, is that the time lies outside the galactic habitable zone because of low metallicity.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 19/05/2020 21:48:32
Two aqueous solutions of different temperature and composition.
OK, so what's the "pipe" between them.

I think you need to draw a diagram here.

The solutes are in low concentration in the large majority of liquid so we don't need to worry about activity coefficients being far from 1 here either.
unless magic happens and then it's saturated with ammonium sulphate - with few enough impurities that you get a meaningful ferroelectric effect from the crystals.

You are reaching the point where  Goddidit looks like a less bad explanation.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 19/05/2020 22:01:28
The proof, which is probabilistic as are all scientific proofs, is that the time lies outside the galactic habitable zone because of low metallicity.

I would contend that there is no such thing as scientific proof at all, but anyway...

I see what you are saying. I'm going to take a look around and see if I can find any terrestrial planets in systems where the star is estimate around 10 billion years old or more. Barnard's Star has a planet, but it appears to be at least partly icy. Just how much of the heavier elements is required to produce life?

EDIT: It seems that Kapteyn's Star is around 11 billion years old and possesses a nearly Earth-sized planet with a greater estimated density than the Earth. That would strongly suggest that it contains a significant proportion of heavy elements.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 19/05/2020 22:23:56
Two aqueous solutions of different temperature and composition.
OK, so what's the "pipe" between them.

There are membranes between two counterflow channels, because I am also tallking about solute exchange, not just thermal exchange. There is no "pipe" between them.

Quote
The solutes are in low concentration in the large majority of liquid so we don't need to worry about activity coefficients being far from 1 here either.
unless magic happens and then it's saturated with ammonium sulphate - with few enough impurities that you get a meaningful ferroelectric effect from the crystals.

You are reaching the point where  Goddidit looks like a less bad explanation.

There is desalinization by freezing so solutes are being cycled back into solid phases. God is for people who want to have simplicity without having the "but no simpler than necessary phrase. One needs enough complexity to show that the system remains metastable for a long time. There need to be sealants that prevent the solids from redissolving. After a while polyserine mainly plays this role. In the abiotic stage it is whatever insoluble organic compounds are available.

To add a little complexity photocells are available to produce DC to complement the AC from the ammonium sulfate. These are anatase on calcite. The anatase is deposited from titanocene dicarbonyl dissolved in the oil phase. It is generated by gamma ray evaporation of tholin covered titanium rich refractory grains. The calcite is produced from aragonite solution. Calcite crystals are long and pointed such that they poke through the surface and serve as light tunnels for the anatase semiconductor.


Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 20/05/2020 01:50:59
It seems that Kapteyn's Star is around 11 billion years old and possesses a nearly Earth-sized planet with a greater estimated density than the Earth. That would strongly suggest that it contains a significant proportion of heavy elements.

The star only has only 14 % of the Sun's iron concentration. If it is indeed denser than the Earth, than the percentage of elements between helium and iron may be even lower. These are the ones most necessary for life. It is unclear in just how high a concentration these need to be. I say that a gamma ray burst is necessary to produce all the processes that lead to life. For instance, the titanocene dicarbonyl to produce photovoltaic cells could only have been produced by a gamma ray burst. These do not occur until several billion years after stellar formation.

It also does not take just one suitable planetary system for life to spread. It takes a sizable population so that there is a sizable probability that life would survive long enough to make the interstellar trip. To get from the early Milky Way to our epoch would probably take many generations of trips. As metallicity increased the average number of offspring in each generation would increase. If so, why do we not see more evidence of extraterrestrial life? After all we are talking about more than twice the age of the Solar System.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 20/05/2020 21:20:25
Calcite crystals are long and pointed such that they poke through the surface and serve as light tunnels for the anatase semiconductor.

After spores are formed the calcite also points down through a membrane to the flow of water out of the spring. There are at least three membranes. The top one separates vacuum and oil. The middle one separates oil and water and is where most of the activity takes place. Halloysite nanotubes lie along this membrane and extend into the calcite crystal cutting it in half during reproduction. They are of different types. During cold periods most of the polar fluid freezes leaving a saturated ammonium sulfate/formamide (ASF) solution at both ends and through the middle of one type of nanotube. This sets the fundamental chemistry that eventually leads to the largest part of biochemicals. Proteins have very low solubility in ASF solution, so ribonucleoprotein complexes concentrate in the gap between the two halves of the calcite crystal. This gap is the protocyanobacteria zone.

A second type of nanotube codistills hydrocarbons and water through the nanotube when a there is a temperature difference between the ends. This selects for hydrocarbons with about the same vapor pressure as water. Most notable is benzene which combines with serine to produce phenylalanine. The tubes also move in this process, mainly longitudinally. The bottom membrane is selectively permeable and separates water flowing in opposite directions. With a transverse current this concentrates metal ions to be used in the biochemistry. This is the proto-Deinococcus zone because it is cannibalized during the reproduction process.

When a layer of dust has collected above the top membrane it is punctured and oil permeates the layer. A new hydrocarbon membrane then begins to form by UV irradiation so the function of each layer moves up a step. Proto-virus/spores invade the newly refunctioned layers to perform the metamorphosis. The volume with nanotubes surrounding the calcite crystal, including some vertical ones, is the protoeukayote zone. The nanotubes will eventually be replaced by microtubules. The outlying areas are the protoarchaea zone.

Nitric oxide from the gamma ray blast was the original oxidant. As it was replaced by electrooxidation, surplus NO was used to oxidize methane. The catalyst here was the initial foundation for both nitrogen fixation and chlorophyll production. NO was the signal that new dust was being introduced into the system and still is the signal for Deinococcus to reproduce. Glass droplets with a high water content were formed after the blast because they were in a high H environment. On devitrification the water was released to hydrolyze the absorbed poly-NS and HCN. This is the source of the crucial ASF solution.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 20/05/2020 22:23:51
To add a little complexity photocells are available to produce DC to complement the AC from the ammonium sulfate. These are anatase on calcite. The anatase is deposited from titanocene dicarbonyl dissolved in the oil phase. It is generated by gamma ray evaporation of tholin covered titanium rich refractory grains. The calcite is produced from aragonite solution. Calcite crystals are long and pointed such that they poke through the surface and serve as light tunnels for the anatase semiconductor.
You just jumped the shark.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 20/05/2020 22:42:49
To add a little complexity photocells are available to produce DC to complement the AC from the ammonium sulfate. These are anatase on calcite. The anatase is deposited from titanocene dicarbonyl dissolved in the oil phase. It is generated by gamma ray evaporation of tholin covered titanium rich refractory grains. The calcite is produced from aragonite solution. Calcite crystals are long and pointed such that they poke through the surface and serve as light tunnels for the anatase semiconductor.
You just jumped the shark.


Jumping sharks is necessary to prevent collisions when kitesurfing. What do you have to say about my last reply, which gives a lot more detail about how my model fits modern biology?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 20/05/2020 22:51:17
What do you have to say about my last reply,
I'm not bothering to read it.
Not once you explained just how far-fetched your house of cards was.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 20/05/2020 23:03:35
What do you have to say about my last reply,
I'm not bothering to read it.
Not once you explained just how far-fetched your house of cards was.


Of course not; it is not a house of cards. For instance, one of the problems of starting photosynthesis from a photovoltaic cell is getting the semiconductor pure enough. The best way to solve the problem is by depositing it from a hydrophobic chemical. So I showed under what conditions the natural process of a gamma ray burst generates the hydrophobic chemical  titanocene dicarbonyl. As for the calcite crystal I just suggest you look at some of the online images of large, beautifully shaped calcite crystals. By the way, anatase is the crystalline form of titania that naturally deposits on calcite.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 21/05/2020 17:28:04
 
Quote from: larens
Fortunately the community of Halloysite nanotube creatures at the top has learned how to regulate the nuclear reactor so that it does not create a geyser. They add chloride as a neutron absorber when they detect radioiodine.

The nuclear control system works as follows:

Radioactive iodine-131 with a half life of 8 days binds to tyrosine within electroluminant material at the bottom of the calcite crystal. The light generated by the beta rays passes to the photovoltaic cells remaining on the sides of the bottom half of the crystal. The electricity passes by nanowires  to the locations of deposits of neutron absorbing materials, e.g., chlorine and boron. To prevent them from redissolving these have been covered by membranes that are sutured by diselenide bonds in selenoprotein K. When the electricity reduces these bonds the protein splits and the membrane ruptures releasing the neutron poisons and reducing the power of the reactor.

This system was added after the heat from radioisotopes aluminum-26 and iron-60 diminished, which was long after the basic genetic code had been fixed. A stop codon was given an alternative interpretation as a codon for selenocysteine, which contains one half of the diselenide bond. The purpose of selenoprotein K today is unknown. Its high redox potential and intrinsically disordered character were tailored to its original purpose. The electroluminant material today is in the coat of Deinococcus Radiodurans, the general purpose extremophile. A selenium containing molecule regulates the removal of iodine from tyrosine today. Iodine-131 removed itself because it decays to the inert gas xenon.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 21/05/2020 18:57:11
Of course not; it is not a house of cards.
If there was a satellite, and if it was in the right place at the right time , and if it had the right springs and if the calcite gre in the wrong shaped crystals and if the temperature was right and if the vapour pressure was right and if the layer of goo had the right properties and if the ammonium sulphate grew into clean crystals (It reacts with calcite, btw) and if the universe decided to favour it with titanocene dicarbonyl then there's still a stack more cards to go.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 21/05/2020 19:25:50
Of course not; it is not a house of cards.
If there was a satellite, and if it was in the right place at the right time , and if it had the right springs and if the calcite gre in the wrong shaped crystals and if the temperature was right and if the vapour pressure was right and if the layer of goo had the right properties and if the ammonium sulphate grew into clean crystals (It reacts with calcite, btw) and if the universe decided to favour it with titanocene dicarbonyl then there's still a stack more cards to go.

Well, so far the data easily satisfies all the ifs, (except the calcite has the right shaped crystals). The games on! Keep dealing the cards. (I am aware, btw, that calcite reacts with ammonium sulfate. The calcite automatically gets coated with an insoluble coating of anatase).
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 21/05/2020 20:19:14
Of possible relevance: https://phys.org/news/2020-05-cosmic-rays-left-indelible-imprint.html
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 21/05/2020 20:50:27
Of possible relevance: https://phys.org/news/2020-05-cosmic-rays-left-indelible-imprint.html


This one of the most stupid articles I've seen. Maybe I should give it an award. If the chirality of electrons from cosmic rays can influence us, why should they outweigh the vastly larger number of electrons in the matter around us? To compound the stupidity the author lets us assume that the whole cosmic ray shower carries the chirality of matter. The shower is produced by the energy of the ray, independent of its type, so there are equal numbers of particles of opposite type making the entire shower achiral! (This assumes the cosmic ray that induced the shower is a photon or is baryonic, which is generally the case. (Baryons cannot pass through the atmosphere without being stopped.)  If it happens to be an electron, the shower will just have the one unit of chirality of that one electron.)

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 21/05/2020 21:17:57
If the chirality of electrons from cosmic rays can influence us, why should they outweigh the vastly larger number of electrons in the matter around us?

I'm pretty sure the energy levels of cosmic rays are incomparable to the energy levels of electrons in normal matter.

To confirm the stupidity, most of the cosmic rays at ground level are muons, which are achiral.

Achiral in what sense? That they cannot be polarized? Do you have a reference?

They decay into pairs of electrons and antineutrinos (and positrons and neutrinos) whose chirality cancel out. There are equal numbers of pairs of both types so the entire shower is achiral!

That seems unlikely. We appear to live in a strongly matter-dominated Universe. Do you have a reference for cosmic rays producing or containing equal numbers of electrons and positrons (or muons and anti-muons)?

the entire shower is achiral!

Electrons are significantly more likely to interact with matter than anti-neutrinos, so matter wouldn't see the shower as achiral on average.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 21/05/2020 22:30:13
If the chirality of electrons from cosmic rays can influence us, why should they outweigh the vastly larger number of electrons in the matter around us?

I'm pretty sure the energy levels of cosmic rays are incomparable to the energy levels of electrons in normal matter.


The chirality of interaction does not depend on the  energy by the principle of equivalence.

To confirm the stupidity, most of the cosmic rays at ground level are muons, which are achiral.

I must remember to not let my own standards lapse, because of the low standards I have just encountered. In glibly answering I was thinking of the pions in the top part of the shower, which are pseudoscaler. Muons are, of course, just as chiral as electrons.

Quote
They decay into pairs of electrons and antineutrinos (and positrons and neutrinos) whose chirality cancel out. There are equal numbers of pairs of both types so the entire shower is achiral!

That seems unlikely. We appear to live in a strongly matter-dominated Universe. Do you have a reference for cosmic rays producing or containing equal numbers of electrons and positrons (or muons and anti-muons)?

The shower is created from the energy of the cosmic ray, not from matter. This is common knowledge. There have to be an equal number of electrons and positrons by conservation of charge.

Quote
the entire shower is achiral!

Electrons are significantly more likely to interact with matter than anti-neutrinos, so matter wouldn't see the shower as achiral on average.

The shower would still be achiral because there are an equal number of positrons.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 21/05/2020 22:45:53
The chirality of interaction does not depend on the  energy by the principle of equivalence.

Nobody ever said that it did.

There have to be an equal number of electrons and positrons by conservation of charge.

The shower would still be achiral because there are an equal number of positrons.

I imagine that the majority of the negative charge in cosmic rays is brought by electrons, whereas the majority of the positive charge is brought by protons. It's been a while since I've looked into it, but I'm pretty sure that electrons and protons are not equally well-absorbed or deflected by the atmosphere. Whatever the products of those interactions with air molecules are, they probably do not both reach the ground equally well for that reason. So I would expect there to be at least a slight bias towards one chirality over another at sea level.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 21/05/2020 22:47:26
Well, so far the data easily satisfies all the ifs,
No.
At best, the data says "maybe" to all the ifs.
That's not the same as saying it happened.
Calcite crystals are long and pointed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland_spar#/media/File:Silfurberg.jpg
That's the typical shape of calcite crystals- barely twice as long as they are wide with fairly blunt ends.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 21/05/2020 23:23:42
Well, so far the data easily satisfies all the ifs,
No.
At best, the data says "maybe" to all the ifs.
That's not the same as saying it happened.

There you go again - pointing out that philosophically there is always the possibility of a counterexample. Generally people do not speak that way because it is too verbose. After a large number of confirming examples and no counterexamples they start using declarative sentences. When, if ever, are you going to start to seriously respond to my confirming examples, rather than continuing to nitpick?

Quote
Calcite crystals are long and pointed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland_spar#/media/File:Silfurberg.jpg
That's the typical shape of calcite crystals- barely twice as long as they are wide with fairly blunt ends.

I am talking about crystals grown from a restricted area at one end with a restricted point of nucleation. They are rather knife like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcite
Once the area is fixed by lateral constraints the aspect ratio will just keep growing. In my case the crystals start from a micrometeorite puncture and eventually become coated on the sides.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 22/05/2020 03:12:59
The chirality of interaction does not depend on the  energy by the principle of equivalence.

Nobody ever said that it did.

How was I supposed to take this statement when we  were talking about interactions?
Quote
I'm pretty sure the energy levels of cosmic rays are incomparable to the energy levels of electrons in normal matter.


Quote
So I would expect there to be at least a slight bias towards one chirality over another at sea level.

There is but the flux is on the order of 0.1 electron per square meter per second. The density is about 34 orders of magnitude smaller than the density of electrons in the body, which was my original point.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 22/05/2020 06:14:37
How was I supposed to take this statement when we  were talking about interactions?

Because I was talking about the chirality of the cosmic rays hitting the ground, not the chirality of electrons in the matter on the ground (biological or otherwise).

There is but the flux is on the order of 0.1 electron per square meter per second. The density is about 34 orders of magnitude smaller than the density of electrons in the body, which was my original point.

And out of all of those electrons in the body, what proportion of them do you think have enough energy to damage DNA?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 22/05/2020 07:33:56
Quote from: Kryptid link=topic=79178.msg604169#msg604169
And out of all of those electrons in the body, what proportion of them do you think have enough energy to damage DNA?

Not many, but still tens of thousands times more than from the cosmic ray. Beta radiation from potassium 40 is the largest source. Most of the ionizing damage is done by secondary electrons from matter in the body. Then there are free radicals and other mutagenic chemicals. Chemistry is electron clouds after all.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 22/05/2020 08:48:36
There you go again - pointing out that philosophically there is always the possibility of a counterexample.
You are the one taking that stance.

You have convinced yourself that your idea is right, just because it is faintly possible.*
That's not the way to do science.

* It isn't : you need water for calcite crystals but water destroys the titanocene.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 22/05/2020 08:51:33
I am talking about crystals grown from a restricted area at one end with a restricted point of nucleation. They are rather knife like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcite
That illustrates my point.
There are 14 pictures of calcite crystals on that page; 13 of them show that you are wrong.
You focus on the minutiae that support your bizarre idea.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: puppypower on 22/05/2020 13:53:53
One way to understand how everyone can appear to be right in their own mind, is connected to the contrast between pure and applied science. Pure science tries to explain things as they are in nature. Applied science uses this foundation, to show us things, as they could be. The latter approach is important to the development of new technology and products, which are often not part of the natural environment. Both use science. Pure science is dependent on this new technology to extend its own vision.

For example, diamonds are assume to form naturally under extreme pressure and heat over millions of years. They are often found near volcanoes. This is considered pure science.The applied scientist can make diamonds in the lab in a matter of weeks, using hot presses and catalysts. Both use science and both can lead to the same end result. The difference is applied and pure science will take different paths to the same place. In this example, both can show support experiments. The applied scientist can generate data much faster and build a preponderance of data in a shorter time. One has to be careful about the assumed correlation between the most data equals pure science, since applied is easier to generate.

This leads to the question of how much we can trust experiments, in pure science, if we are testing theory, and not just recording observations?  In other words, a clever experimental development person can set an experiment to get any final product desired. I was good at that. One can use applied science to prove pure science theory, with the experiment actually generating artificial end products that may have useful applications. The line can be blurred.   

As an analogy, when diamonds were first mined, practical mining limitations required diamonds be harvested from the surface of the earth. That being said, if I used a hot press to make diamonds in a lab, set up in the diamond mine, this experiment would appear to justify that as pure science. Nobody will get the funding to dig down ten miles and wait for 100,000 years. I was cheaper and could get reproducible results very fast. Who has the data? 

This approach, sometimes used in science, is one step removed from magic. In a magic trick, such as levitating a person, one will use science and technology to create the proper experimental conditions on the stage. If this experiment is successful, it will appear to offer proof of the theoretical concept that levitation is indeed possible.

Magic will fail the re-do test, by other researchers, since the magician may not show his trade secrets and the new testers may not have the magic skills.  Applied experiments, for pure science, can fool the experts, since a re-do experiment can be more consistent, if the original experimenter documents all his experimental details, as required for publication.   

The organic centric approach to evolution and biology is driven by free market applied science. There is lot of money spent and a lot of money to be made, to create medical and food products that are not natural to the earth. If pure science was important water, could not be ignored as it can with applied science. Often we the get the pot called the kettle black, if competition shows up in the applied market place, of pure applied science. Many may not understand there is a difference between pure and applied experiments.

Nobody can prove how life appeared on earth, period. There is no pure science observational data. This opens the need for applied science to help out, by showing what may have been, but not necessarily what was. This applied data has become the preponderance of data. If you could form the first cell in the lab, even by artificial means, this is big bucks, since the spin off has lots of practical applications. It may even become the basis for what will be sold as pure theory.

I was an applied scientist for many years, Later in life I shifted to looking at the conceptual framework of pure science. I noticed artificial things had been added, that is sold as pure. This is made difficult to see, since applied experiments are repeatable. A factory depends on this.

Science does not have its own resources, but is beholden for resources to government and industry,  who want to impact the cultural and market places in the short term. They can accept  applied contamination to the pure. This can be seen, if you look at the conceptual foundations.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 22/05/2020 17:54:30
I am talking about crystals grown from a restricted area at one end with a restricted point of nucleation. They are rather knife like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcite
That illustrates my point.
There are 14 pictures of calcite crystals on that page; 13 of them show that you are wrong.
You focus on the minutiae that support your bizarre idea.


You have convinced yourself that your idea is right, just because it is faintly possible.*
That's not the way to do science.

* It isn't : you need water for calcite crystals but water destroys the titanocene.

I make my choices based on the larger picture. There are two horizontal UV polymerized hydrocarbon membranes with vacuum above, oil between, and water below. These have an approximately vertical interface with calcite. The top membrane gets punctured by micrometeorites, but these holes are healed by further polymerization of dissolved hydrocarbons. The lower membrane  was originally on the surface, got buried in dust, and is now thoroughly impermeable. This makes the oil extremely dry because it loses its water to the vacuum. The shape of the calcite crystal was first determined by it growing from a hole in the lower membrane. Water can travel along the oil/calcite interface where it reacts with the titanocene to form an anatase coating on the calcite. This coating is eroded away where the crystal has penetrated the vacuum allowing light to enter and induce photovoltaic action in the rest of the anatase. The T-Tauri stellar environment has adequate erosion. The oil is produced by the hydrogenation of carbon. The hydrogen is produced by the serpentinization of minerals in the underlying spring. My choices are not arbitrary, but are determined by the demands of the entire picture. This is good science.


Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 22/05/2020 18:25:52
One can use applied science to prove pure science theory, with the experiment actually generating artificial end products that may have useful applications.

My model is pure science that needs to be validated by scientifically designed experiments. This should be relatively easy to do since many of the parts of my model can easily be translated into laboratory experiments. I definitely hope that this will have useful spin-offs.

Quote
Nobody can prove how life appeared on earth, period. There is no pure science observational data.

Pure science often deals with events removed in time and space. These are considered as provable as any complex phenomena.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 22/05/2020 18:33:37
scientifically designed experiments.
OK mix titanocene dicarbonyl with water.
(use a fume cupboard to protect you from the carbon monoxide produced.)

It only needs one experiment to show that it fails.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 22/05/2020 21:00:17
scientifically designed experiments.
OK mix titanocene dicarbonyl with water.
(use a fume cupboard to protect you from the carbon monoxide produced.)

It only needs one experiment to show that it fails.

OK to be realistic the experiment will also need to include calcite, ammonium sulfate/formamide (ASF) solution, and schreibersite (meteoritic trinickel phosphide). The anatase phase is stabilized in proximity with calcite but rutile is the bulk stable phase of titania. Thus an anatase/rutile heterojunction will develop. Anatase has the lower band gap so the calcite side will be negative. Water reacts with schreibersite to produce nickel cation and pyrophosphite, a precursor for ATP. ASF solution will dissolve some of the calcite next to the anatase. Nickel cation will be attracted to the anatase and be reduced forming a dendritic nickel contact for the calcite side. On the other side of the titania hydrogen will be oxidized by photovoltaic current leading to the polymerization of metallic cyclopentadienyl as a byproduct of the titanocene/water reaction. Voila! - a complete solar cell. When the temperature drops low enough ammonium sulphate will act as a battery. When the temperature warms up there will be a reversal of current allowing electrochemical electrodes in the larger system to clear themselves of impurities. I do not know the Schottky properties of the anatase/nickel contact but the anthropocentric argument says they are favorable. Unfortunately, some of the kinetics is very slow, particularly that of titania and surface diffusion, so the experiment make take a very long time.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 22/05/2020 21:50:53
For what it's worth, the presence of ammonium sulphate will make the destruction of the titanocene derivative a little quicker.
The rest is a huge stack of wishful thinking.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 22/05/2020 22:27:38
For what it's worth, the presence of ammonium sulphate will make the destruction of the titanocene derivative a little quicker.

I have been thinking along those lines. Calcite saturated ASF solution is probably necessary on the oil side to create an electronically suitable rutile layer. It will be then be deposited from a suitably concentrated calcium titanate solution.

Quote
The rest is a huge stack of wishful thinking.

There lays the difference between us. I am an optimist, so I go ahead and produce a successful model. You are a pessimist, engage in a huge stack of negative thinking, and produce nothing.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 22/05/2020 23:10:10
, so I go ahead and produce a successful model.
It's not a success, because it requires the utterly implausible intervention (among other things) of titanocene dicarbonyl.
a suitably concentrated calcium titanate solution.
The solubility of calcium titanate is roughly zero.
You don't get a concentrated solution of it.

And yet  you say "
I go ahead and produce a successful model.
Whereas  a pessimist won't waste time on stuff that's impossible.
Who knows? They might actually achieve something instead of  cluttering bandwidth with impossible nonsense.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 22/05/2020 23:52:21
I am an optimist, so I go ahead and produce a successful model.

How do you know it's successful if you haven't tested it?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 23/05/2020 00:42:15
I am an optimist, so I go ahead and produce a successful model.

How do you know it's successful if you haven't tested it?
Let's face it. Even in a simple thought experiment, it failed the test.
He still thinks it passed.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 23/05/2020 01:54:33
 
, so I go ahead and produce a successful model.
It's not a success, because it requires the utterly implausible intervention (among other things) of titanocene dicarbonyl.

Because you are not a theoretician, you never get into exotic chemistry, e.g, intense radiolysis.

Quote
The solubility of calcium titanate is roughly zero.
You don't get a concentrated solution of it.

You are talking about solubility in water. For growing a large crystal a sparingly soluble solution is better for it blocks the variability of the sources. Calcium titanate is significantly soluble in calcite saturated ASF solution.

Quote
And yet  you say "
I go ahead and produce a successful model.
Whereas  a pessimist won't waste time on stuff that's impossible.
Who knows? They might actually achieve something instead of  cluttering bandwidth with impossible nonsense.

You are just proving again that you are not a creative, practical scientist.

How do you know it's successful if you haven't tested it?

I test it everyday by taking a missing piece of my analysis and finding a straightforward explanation for what that piece implies. That is what most theoretical scientists mean by testing. I would like some empirical scientists to test it but they won't without a grant. I do not have any money to pay them because I have spent my time working on my theory rather than on creating a funding account. It would be rather a failure of ethics to hold this against me.

Let's face it. Even in a simple thought experiment, it failed the test.
He still thinks it passed.

The only test that it failed was not getting you to read and analyze it seriously. I have been rebutting every technical detail you do casually throw out. It is not a valid test because you have shown that you are not a creative, practical scientist that would recognize a successful new theory if it bit you.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 23/05/2020 06:41:48
I test it everyday by taking a missing piece of my analysis and finding a straightforward explanation for what that piece implies.

That's not a scientific test. That's just adjusting your model.

It is not a valid test because you have shown that you are not a creative, practical scientist that would recognize a successful new theory if it bit you.

If a system like the one you described was built and it resulted in the creation of living organisms, I would call that successful. Before that, I wouldn't call it successful because you don't know if it would even work.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 23/05/2020 08:12:43
I test it everyday by taking a missing piece of my analysis and finding a straightforward explanation for what that piece implies.

That's not a scientific test. That's just adjusting your model.

Testing and adjusting are not the same thing. If I can do an analysis on a new piece and get a satisfactory result, that is a positive test. If I go back and change an old piece, that is an adjustment. They both fall under the larger category of refinement and are usually done together.

Quote
It is not a valid test because you have shown that you are not a creative, practical scientist that would recognize a successful new theory if it bit you.

If a system like the one you described was built and it resulted in the creation of living organisms, I would call that successful. Before that, I wouldn't call it successful because you don't know if it would even work.

The model might be correct, but might be too large or take too long to do. For instance, to interpret the isotope record in meteorites I have to use a model of neutron star mergers. Nearest to the forming black hole their iron crusts undergo radical compression and heating. A typical overall reaction is 2Fe-56 -> Fe-60 + 2Al-26. These radioisotopes are ejected axially along magnetic field lines. The r-process (rapid neutron capture) isotopes with A<140 are mainly ejected from midlatitudes. The heavy isotopes with A>140 are mainly ejected at equatorial latitudes. When all these isotopes reach the Solar nebula they are absorbed onto small particles. This is what fits the data for a gamma ray burst pointed directly at the Solar system. Since the main belt asteroids have yet to form, the Al-26 and Fe-60 get mixed into them causing them to melt and form iron-nickel cores. After they cool Jupiter moves causing the asteroids to collide with one another and be ground down into meteorites, which provide phosphorous in a useful form for early life. This extends over millions of years. No one expects anyone to do physical experiments in this case, They use computers and in the case of the neutron star mergers supercomputers.

Most of the parameters that go into the models have been determined by physical experiment. For instance, NASA has done physical collision experiments with iron-nickel meteorites to determine their ductility at different temperatures for the grinding process. As for the origin of life many of the processes need to be verified in laboratory experiments. One cannot do the overall experiment, however, because life developed over millions of years.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 23/05/2020 12:36:02
Calcium titanate is significantly soluble in calcite saturated ASF solution.

https://xkcd.com/285/
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 23/05/2020 16:25:51
Calcium titanate is significantly soluble in calcite saturated ASF solution.

https://xkcd.com/285/

I do not have a citation because no one has measured it. The theoretical argument is based on activities. First formamide is more polar than water raising solubility modestly. Ammonia greatly reduces the activity of carbonate. This greatly raises the activity of calcium. This greatly increases the potential of calcium titanate compared to rutile. The calcium titanate dissolves because it is the polar form. The "significant" concentration is quite small. The growth rate to grow large polar crystals is only on the order of one micron per year. This puts the solubility of rutile in water below the normal range of measurability. The solubility increases with basicity, which removes the proton from ammonium.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 23/05/2020 16:49:33
Ammonium greatly reduces the activity of carbonate. This greatly raises the activity of calcium.
Wel... sort of.
Excess ammonium sulphate will tend to displace CO2 from calcite- which is a pity since you were hoping to use calcite fro things.
It will convert it into a different rock- gypsum. (And ammonium carbonate- which is volatile).
That's actually quite soluble as rocks go. (about 2 grams per litre in water).

Even that fairly low concentration of calcium would be enough to reduce the solubility of calcium titanate - by the law of mass action.

So the science says that if there's calcite and ammonium sulphate present, the solubility of calcium titanate is likely to be reduced.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 23/05/2020 17:08:49
If I can do an analysis on a new piece and get a satisfactory result, that is a positive test.

How can you know that the result is satisfactory if you don't know that your set-up can give rise to life?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 23/05/2020 17:24:35
Ammonium greatly reduces the activity of carbonate. This greatly raises the activity of calcium.
Wel... sort of.
Excess ammonium sulphate will tend to displace CO2 from calcite- which is a pity since you were hoping to use calcite fro things.

No, this property is necessary. The amount of ammonium sulfate is regulated by the organic barrier between its source and the calcite. The calcite has to be etched for the nickel contact of the photovoltaic cell to be formed. Later during stepping (to raise the top of the crystal above the layer of dust) or reproduction the crystal has to be cut in two. This would be impossible if it were not for its high solubility in ASF solution.

Quote
So the science says that if there's calcite and ammonium sulphate present, the solubility of calcium titanate is likely to be reduced.

To achieve an optimum rate of crystal growth the organic barrier has to regulate the concentration of calcium and the pH.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 23/05/2020 17:33:13
If I can do an analysis on a new piece and get a satisfactory result, that is a positive test.

How can you know that the result is satisfactory if you don't know that your set-up can give rise to life?

Since my goal is to model the origin of life, a satisfactory result is one that is compatible with that goal. Without a goal satisfaction and positive test would be undefined. Why do you have such difficulty with basis scientific philosophy and logic?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 23/05/2020 17:36:45
Ammonium sulphate will destroy metallic nickel.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 23/05/2020 17:55:41


Ammonium sulphate will destroy metallic nickel.

What you are saying is that ammonium sulfate's complexing ability is great enough to dissolve metallic nickel. This is fine. It makes possible the non-electrochemical deposition of nickel metal. The system has a high hydrogen fugacity from the serpentinization of mafic minerals. (This can be many atmospheres without forming a gas phase, because of the small capillaries of the protobiological region, their relatively high tensile strength, and the great height of the volcanic standpipe.)  Activity is not linear at these high concentrations. The high concentration of calcium cations in calcite saturated ASF solution competes with nickel cations moving the equilibrium toward nickel metal.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 23/05/2020 18:34:18
No. What I am saying is
Ammonium sulphate will destroy metallic nickel.
You can tell, because that's what I actually said.
It's the acidity which does it.
The complexing ability of ammonium sulphate- on which you seem to be depending- is nil (unlike that of ammonia).
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 23/05/2020 18:52:51
No. What I am saying is
Ammonium sulphate will destroy metallic nickel.
You can tell, because that's what I actually said.
It's the acidity which does it.
The complexing ability of ammonium sulphate- on which you seem to be depending- is nil (unlike that of ammonia).

With equilibrium all reactions are relevant at some level so different interpretations are possible. When I realized your different interpretation I edited my explanation. Both rutile solubility and nickel deposition are favored by basicity. If the optimum pH is too different in the separate compartments of the two reactions, there has to some regulation by the organic material separating them. This illustrates the difficulty of dealing with the chemistry of the origin of life. There is increasing regulation with time and one has to show that any particular regulation has been made possible by previously developed ones.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 23/05/2020 18:57:36
there has to some regulation by the organic material separating them.
So, "magic" then...
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 23/05/2020 19:56:01
there has to some regulation by the organic material separating them.
So, "magic" then...

Only if you consider life "magic" rather than a result of natural processes.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 23/05/2020 21:21:07
Only if you consider life "magic" rather than a result of natural processes.

Life before there was life is magic.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 23/05/2020 21:29:08
Since my goal is to model the origin of life, a satisfactory result is one that is compatible with that goal.

You don't know that it's compatible.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 23/05/2020 23:16:54
Since my goal is to model the origin of life, a satisfactory result is one that is compatible with that goal.

You don't know that it's compatible.

In making a test one can only consider compatibility within the limited domain of the test. Otherwise one cannot proceed from one positive test to another and build a model. At the very end one may find there is a better explanation than the one that was being tested. In that case making the test was a necessary stepping stone to knowledge. It was close enough to support further progress and refinement of the model. If I used your philosophy, all I could do at the beginning was to wail, "I can't proceed! I don't have the final results!"

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 23/05/2020 23:20:54
If I used your philosophy, all I could do at the beginning was to wail, "I can't proceed! I don't have the final results!"

That's a straw-man. I never said you couldn't proceed. By all means, proceed and do tests. That wasn't my contention. My contention is with you calling it "successful".
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 24/05/2020 00:23:53
Only if you consider life "magic" rather than a result of natural processes.

Life before there was life is magic.

Before the arbitrary boundary defining where "life" starts, abiotic processes were preparing the road. Consider that the entire Solar system was set up to be a place for life to originate. The originating body Ushas ("Dawn" in Sanskrit) needed twelve guardians in the Solar system. Life needed six main elements H, C, N, O, P, and S. H is the ubiquitous univalent atom that defines the boundary of molecules. It just required a distant supernova to keep Ushas warm so that she could have water.

* Vesta (Keeper of the Hearth) attracted the necessary resources for Ushas.

* Earth provided a place for Ushas's offspring to live.

* Uranus and Neptune dispersed the covalent elements C, N, O, and S to Vesta once they had been bound into dust and stored at 9 AU. Dispersing agents come in pairs, one to do the dispersal and one to usher the disperser away.

* Jupiter and Saturn dispersed the mostly ionic element P after it was stored in iron/nickel cores of asteroids.

* Venus and Mercury guarded Earth by casting dangerous asteroids into the Sun.

* Mars guarded the Earth on the opposite side of its orbit and also served as a stepping stone to Earth.

* Ceres (Creator of Agriculture) prevented the corpse of Ushas from falling back into the Earth after Mars had thrust her away. We must all die after we have completed our mission.

* Pluto and Charon (guardians of the underworld) provided a final farewell. They make a resonant triad at the outer end of the major planets, just as Vesta, Ushas, and Earth made a resonant triad at the birth of life. On Charon there is a memorial to the first community of living beings on Ushas. It is a mountain in a moat, as was the location of the first community:
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/new-horizons-close-up-of-charon-s-mountain-in-a-moat
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 24/05/2020 00:51:47
If I used your philosophy, all I could do at the beginning was to wail, "I can't proceed! I don't have the final results!"

That's a straw-man. I never said you couldn't proceed. By all means, proceed and do tests. That wasn't my contention. My contention is with you calling it "successful".

Why are you nitpicking? The taking of a test with a sufficient score meeting the goals of the test's creator is called successful. Technically the test may be an abstract set of specifications. Even those are successful if the results are consistent with what the creator wanted to measure. For instance, this morning I set out to show how the basic structure of the Solar system matches the basic structure of my model. The results, which I posted in my reply to Bored Chemist, provide significant support for the Unique Earth (and Solar System) Hypothesis. It is very improbable that a randomly chosen stellar system would fit this well.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 24/05/2020 02:03:47
Why are you nitpicking?

Because you are unjustifiably sure of yourself. You have an extremely specific design for a spring on an object that no one has ever seen before. And you don't know that it can give rise to life (that would have required you to have figured out the step-by-step process required to go from inanimate chemicals to a living cell). On top of that, there is no way to falsify the existence of your spring because we can't go back and look at your hypothetical satellite to see if this spring ever existed or not. If something isn't falsifiable, it isn't science.

The taking of a test with a sufficient score meeting the goals of the test's creator is called successful. Technically the test may be an abstract set of specifications. Even those are successful if the results are consistent with what the creator wanted to measure.

If you are the one taking the test, then who is the test's creator?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 24/05/2020 02:58:09
Why are you nitpicking?

Because you are unjustifiably sure of yourself.

How would you know? I have posted only a small amount of my research, because people have shown so little interest in detail.

Quote
You have an extremely specific design for a spring on an object that no one has ever seen before. And you don't know that it can give rise to life (that would have required you to have figured out the step-by-step process required to go from inanimate chemicals to a living cell).

You have no skin in the game. You cannot as an outsider just set arbitrarily high demands. Science is a competition. Setting aside differences in social/political power, when one side has explained far more basic questions than any of the others they are taken to be the leading contender. Unfortunately, explaining basic questions is generally confused with winning control over the means of supporting, evaluating, and disseminating research.

Quote
On top of that, there is no way to falsify the existence of your spring because we can't go back and look at your hypothetical satellite to see if this spring ever existed or not. If something isn't falsifiable, it isn't science.

That was Popper's viewpoint, but the philosophy of science has moved on. I say that the dialog between Lakatos and Feyerabend captures the relevant question, which is, "How do you strike a balance between epistemological anarchy and setting rules for evaluating new research?"

Quote
If you are the one taking the test, then who is the test's creator?

I am, of course. I am the only one capable of making the tests. No one else has learned the details of the model well enough.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Kryptid on 24/05/2020 04:59:32
How would you know? I have posted only a small amount of my research, because people have shown so little interest in detail.

My assessment is, of course, based on what you've posted.

You have no skin in the game.

I'm not familiar with this phrase.

You cannot as an outsider just set arbitrarily high demands.

Other than yourself, who isn't an outsider?

Science is a competition. Setting aside differences in social/political power, when one side has explained far more basic questions than any of the others they are taken to be the leading contender.

Only if the explanation for the questions is correct.

That was Popper's viewpoint, but the philosophy of science has moved on.

Do you have a reference for this? What year did this switch happen?

I am, of course. I am the only one capable of making the tests. No one else has learned the details of the model well enough.

And thus you have completely invalidated your claim to having been successful. Anyone can pass a test that they wrote themself.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 24/05/2020 13:09:31
Consider that the entire Solar system was set up to be a place for life to originate.
By whom?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 24/05/2020 13:11:47
Why are you nitpicking? The taking of a test with a sufficient score meeting the goals of the test's creator is called successful.
If the creator of the test says "it doesn't matter that the bit about titanocene is impossible-  the idea still works" then the "goal" is set so easy as to be pointless.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: puppypower on 24/05/2020 13:33:27
Water is the majority component of life on earth. Therefore, life on earth, at all scales, evolved with  water as a majority chemical component. Water was the nano-environment, which defined the physical chemical parameters, used for the natural selection of the organic and ionic chemicals, that led to life. The first two claims are self evident. The last can be demonstrated with analogies found in nature and with simple direct experiments.

As an analogy, the environment is important to macro-scale evolution. The hot desert will set different parameters for evolution compared to the cold Arctic Circle. If you were to transpose life from the Sahara Desert, to the Arctic circle or vice versa, it would not function properly, since it was not originally selected by the parameters within the new environment. 

In the case of life, that formed in water, if we placed these cells, in any other solvents, the new solvent will create a new nanoscale physical chemical environment; polar bears moved to the equator. Tests have been run where water based life is placed in a wide range of different solvents based nanoscale environments. In all cases, the state that we call life, disappeared. The cell was o tuned to water it would not be switched. The polar bear will not survive long in the equator. In the car of cells, all enzyme reactions also became inhibited. The DNA or RNA did not work properly. These experiments tell us that very specific changes, connected to the water environment, must have occurred. Water was the original nanoscale environment for the chemical natural selection processes for all the organic chemicals behind life as we know. There were designed with water surrounding them, with water also self hydrogen bonding in extended space. Stability in the water decided which will be selected. This is not the same in other solvents and was more complex than just any type hydrogen bonding.

The problem we are having in this discussion, is there is a difference between pure and applied science. Pure science is often observational and defines nature as it is. Applied science will use science principles to define nature, as we want it to be. 

A classic example of the contrast between pure and applied science, is diamonds form at high temperature and pressure over along periods of time. This observation is considered pure science observation. Applied science can make diamonds in the lab in a few weeks using various hot press techniques. These applied experiments can be duplicated by others, thereby satisfying the philosophy of science. This is not pure, but it nevertheless satisfies the needs of the philosophy of science. This can fool those who do not know the difference between pure and applied. The factory that makes rubies for lasers, has to be able to duplicate this applied science for quality control. 

In terms of the formation of life, there is no observational data for the direct formation of life on earth. Nobody has even seen it or recored it. A truly pure science foundation is lacking. Instead, we have a range of applied science theories, many of which can be duplicated in the lab, like making diamonds in the lab or rubies in the factory. These approached are both clever and commendable, but the accolades of applied called pure come down to funding and politics, neither of which is part of the philosophy of science. The status quo will always win, when every theory is applied, and there is no pure data.

When there is no pure observational data, we need to conceptually trouble shoot the various applied science procedures including the status quo. Biology is relatively pure, since it deals with cataloging observational data. One can detail an observation without knowing it's hows and whys.

Biochemistry, as applied to life, is not entirely pure science, since it is way too organic centric and ignores the potentials of water, which can be shown to be critical to all key molecular operations in a cell; nanoscale selection.The organic centric approach is applied science, sold as pure science. There is big bucks to be made, so this applied approach has many supporters in marketing. This bias sets bureaucratic limits of what can be said and done, as though it is pure.

For example, the DNA will not work without water. It will not work in other solvents. This is hard data.The base pairs have extra hydrogen bonding sites that are ear marked for water. Yet, textbooks do not show the DNA with all it's chemically attached water, as though water is not needed, and the organics alone can do the job. This is a simplifying assumption used by the statistical version of applied science, that is being used. Since this is not pure science, it will be defended with politics and never any lab proof beyond applied experiments massaged with a fudging factor.

The main topic of this discussion is about life forming in an asteroid. This is a good example of applied science. It is clever and could be done in the lab, if you have access and good lab skills. It  may lead to lucrative innovations. But this is applied and not pure.. However, that should not be discouraging, since the status quo is not pure either. How can you leave out water and be called pure?

Statistical models  are the least pure, since they get to gloss over all the details, and then act like it is a done deal. Cheating with statistics is fine in the factory, so you can cut costs in a competitive market place. But it is not how you do pure science. However, it can be used to handicap the competition, when everyone is using applied science. If you do not cheat, you need to go much deeper, than if you do cheat, which raises even more questions.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 24/05/2020 18:16:52
Consider that the entire Solar system was set up to be a place for life to originate.
By whom?

By the collective consciousness that wants us to use physical reality as a medium of communication to be in community.

Why are you nitpicking? The taking of a test with a sufficient score meeting the goals of the test's creator is called successful.
If the creator of the test says "it doesn't matter that the bit about titanocene is impossible-  the idea still works" then the "goal" is set so easy as to be pointless.

Titanocene is a well studied chemical. It will naturally form in a very hot hydrogen rich environment that has a locally high C/O ratio and some titanium atoms. If the environment is highly out of equilibrium, because the high temperature arises from a short burst of ionizing radiation there can be a cooler solid phase to quench the reaction. Tholin coated particles in the hydrogen rich Solar nebula set up appropriate conditions.

Storage of the transformed particles in a cold Solar environment allows them to be coated again with tholin so they can fall into a hydrophobic fluid and not have the titanocene immediately react with traces of hydrophilic compounds. Abrasion of the coating will then allow the titanocene to react in a slow, specific manner. The hydrophobic environment means there will be a great scarcity of hydrophilic nucleation sites.

The storage area was at about 9 AU where radiation pressure levitated small particles above the plane of the Solar nebula and away from the Sun. Once the storage area became unstable radiation pressure caused the particles to spiral in toward the Sun. IR heating from a molten Vesta promoted the formation of the hydrophobic phase on its satellite. Springs were intermittent causing there to be alternating layers of evaporites and dust. A moderate speed iron/nickel micrometeorite can then be trapped behind an evaporite layer as it impacts. Water in the dust layer will promote a large calcite crystal growing from this impact point while providing triphosphate for ATP from the reaction between water and shreibersite. The growth of the calcite provided abrasion and mechanical action for the development of a nanotube network between hydrophilic and hydrophobic hubs. This scenario is well supported by research on the early Solar system. The nanotube network chemistry comes from conventional chemistry at the nanoscale.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 24/05/2020 18:39:01
By the collective consciousness that wants us to use physical reality as a medium of communication to be in community.
How do I distinguish this consciousness before there was life from the good old "Goddidit" model?
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 24/05/2020 20:14:53
By the collective consciousness that wants us to use physical reality as a medium of communication to be in community.
How do I distinguish this consciousness before there was life from the good old "Goddidit" model?

God can cast you into eternal damnation if you do not worship him. Collective consciousness can be friendly. Try South Asian religion if you do not like this polarized characterization.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 24/05/2020 20:49:11
How would you know? I have posted only a small amount of my research, because people have shown so little interest in detail.

My assessment is, of course, based on what you've posted.

OK - just don't rush to judgement.

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You have no skin in the game.

I'm not familiar with this phrase.

It means that you have not yet made an investment in an enterprise, so your opinions are untrustworthy.
 
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You cannot as an outsider just set arbitrarily high demands.

Other than yourself, who isn't an outsider?

At the moment, nobody. Astrobiologists will become insiders when they stop exercising their privileged positions and seriously respond to my communications.

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Science is a competition. Setting aside differences in social/political power, when one side has explained far more basic questions than any of the others they are taken to be the leading contender.

Only if the explanation for the questions is correct.

By logic explaining questions means those explanations are correct. You are quoting out of context by not including more of my reply.

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That was Popper's viewpoint, but the philosophy of science has moved on.

Do you have a reference for this? What year did this switch happen?

It started in 1962 with Thomas Kuhn's, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".

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I am, of course. I am the only one capable of making the tests. No one else has learned the details of the model well enough.

And thus you have completely invalidated your claim to having been successful. Anyone can pass a test that they wrote themself.

Some people, however, have learned how to make good tests. This occurs when they have been ostracized, so need good tests to measure their progress. With me this occurred when I was told, "We have a right to impose our culture!", i.e., by violence, rather than by logic.

Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 24/05/2020 21:10:11
By the collective consciousness that wants us to use physical reality as a medium of communication to be in community.
How do I distinguish this consciousness before there was life from the good old "Goddidit" model?

God can cast you into eternal damnation if you do not worship him. Collective consciousness can be friendly. Try South Asian religion if you do not like this polarized characterization.
So, they are the same thing really. You just invented a ratehr longwinded pantheism.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 24/05/2020 22:29:56
Water is the majority component of life on earth. Therefore, life on earth, at all scales, evolved with  water as a majority chemical component. Water was the nano-environment, which defined the physical chemical parameters, used for the natural selection of the organic and ionic chemicals, that led to life. The first two claims are self evident.
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How can you leave out water and be called pure?

Most of your reply is skewed toward the assumption that life on Earth started on Earth. I did not leave out water. I was focusing on the nonaqueous chemistry, because that is the least understood. Because polyphosphate both started and ended in aqueous solution, phosphorylation must have occurred on interfaces as a means to extract the rest of the molecule from other phases. The key to understanding most of the nonaqueous  chemistry is that the nighttime temperature of the environment was low enough to freeze all polar phases. This led to geometrical points surrounded by polar solid phases where the polar liquid phase had disappeared. These points marked the hubs of an Halloysite tubular network. Surrounding this network were insoluble grains and hydrophobic phases. The last solution to freeze must have been mostly ammonium sulfate in formamide because of solubility and polarity.

My paradigm shift in evolution is that the geometrical structure of eukaryotes was implicit from the beginning. Species have developed by eliminating potential features rather by adding them. Evolution moved by stepping, i. e., having parallel processes operating in different phases. This allowed a new process to improve while an old process was being phased out. This duality was maintained by protoeukaryotes until at least the Cryogenian ice age. At that time volcanoes erupting in the Iapetus rift releasing ammonia from ancient deltas together with sulfur dioxide. This provided a boom for the protoeukaryotes, who were well adopted to the glacial temperatures. When the bust came a new branch of marine eukaryotes arose, which led to the Cambrian radiation when oxygen levels rose enough to allow animals to thrive. A previous branch of marine eukayotes had developed when oxygen levels rose high enough to allow the larger eukaryotic cells to thrive. Borates were replaced by steranes and hopanes as membrane stabilizers giving the normal biosignature for this branch of life. The more primitive eukaryotes were better adopted to boron-rich hypersaline environments. They have not left easily interpretable fossils because the high reactivity of their interiors has just left masses of aromatic carbon.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 24/05/2020 22:35:59
By the collective consciousness that wants us to use physical reality as a medium of communication to be in community.
How do I distinguish this consciousness before there was life from the good old "Goddidit" model?

God can cast you into eternal damnation if you do not worship him. Collective consciousness can be friendly. Try South Asian religion if you do not like this polarized characterization.
So, they are the same thing really. You just invented a ratehr longwinded pantheism.

So that puts me into the company of Spinoza and the modern European philosophical tradition.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: puppypower on 25/05/2020 14:43:30
If you look at our universe, and the observational/pure science behind the universe, we know that hydrogen atoms appeared early in the universe. Hydrogen is still the most common substance in the universe. It is not coincidence, that hydrogen bonding and reduced hydrogen containing compounds would be part of life as we know it. Life makes use of the majority component of the universe for two key things. Hydrogen bonding holds proteins together and is used by the DNA template. Reduce hydrogen is part of protein, DNA and membrane. These states of hydrogen represent the range of its chemical potential. Only H2 exceeds this.

The question becomes, if there was a God with godlike ability, an intelligent God would not have to micromanage creation by rolling dice each step. Rather he would create a situation, from the very beginning, where the beginning is designed to unfold, naturally, all the way to the end. The early creation would set the potentials for the subsequent steps of change. In this type of scenario, one may not see the hand if God directly in each step, since each step was planned in advanced, to be a logical development from the previous steps of unfolding creation. Hydrogen then hydrogen bonding was already planned in advance. Science does not see micromanaging by God, but it does see an unfolding and a type of advancing recycling sequence.

Some Creationists want to see the finger of God in each step, but this is not needed if God had a longer term plan, that unfolds in time.

As an analogy, say you decided to go camping, int a National Park you have never been. One may pack their vehicle with generic camping supplies, ahead of time. Once you arrive, you set up camp within the unknown future location, all based on the supplies you brought. This is intelligent design since it anticipated the future, of the unknown. It used a reasonable predesigned approach. It may not be perfect, but it is almost there, after a few tweaks.

Stupid design will not anticipate future needs, but will try to improvise in the field. It will need to  micromanage each and every step, as though unknown and unrelated. Planning requires looking into the future. When we start in the present, the future unfolds as anticipated. Living in the present, has no future vision, but has to react to each new mystery, the future creates. God has omniscience ability so he can plan.

My approach has always been to accept that the universe formed in a certain way as defined by science observation. However, I also assume that the beginning already had the future in mind. The last15 billions years of future unfolded from this beginning. It was like a pop up tent that starts small and compact, but then systematically expands  and clicks into living quarters; life. It is not coincidence, that hydrogen is the most common atom of the universe and then hydrogen bonding and reduced hydrogen became a huge part of life.

The most common molecules in the universe are H2, H2O and CO. The most common atoms are hydrogen; H, helium; He, oxygen; O and carbon; C. Why not use the most common atoms and molecules for life, since life is so important to the future, make provisions, early. H2O is the most interesting of the top three molecules of the universe, with over 70 known anomalies, or behaviors that are not found in other materials. What was the point to making water so unique, if water does not play a key role in many things? That would be stupid design. These provisions were made in advance, so the formation if life could follow naturally, as the tent pops up.

The problem in science uses too much statistics to create stupid design. Every step is somehow a gamble and a roll of the dice. One cannot plan in advance, to get a needed future logical result. We need to run tests and solve a mystery at every turn. The concept of intelligent design bothers science, since it appears to be a pipe dream in the world of science casinos, lotteries and dice, where camping is always a daily struggle, The idea of camping being planned enjoyment in a  popup tent seems to far away.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 25/05/2020 16:54:36
My approach has always been to accept that the universe formed in a certain way as defined by science observation. However, I also assume that the beginning already had the future in mind.

I agree with your general approach.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 25/05/2020 18:00:25
Fine, but until you can evince it, that's wishful thinking, not science.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 25/05/2020 19:54:03
Fine, but until you can evince it, that's wishful thinking, not science.

Fine, but to evince it I need a starting point. How about starting with sex? In modern times nuclear reactors came first, then the sexual revolution based on having sex without reproduction, and finally solar electric panels. At the origin of life it was the reverse order. Solar electric panels came first, then the sexual revolution based on having sex with reproduction, and finally nuclear reactors. Females could reproduce by themselves while the males managed nuclear reactors. This approach brings up things that people can relate to.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: puppypower on 27/05/2020 15:02:51
Our understanding of life comes from a combination of applied and pure science. The lions share of research, connected to life, is applied science for the the market place. Our core theories of life are not entirely pure. The applied aspect allows plenty of room for alternative theory.

For example,I have shown that water based life will not work in other solvents. Every enzyme and every template does not work, and life will not appear, if we use any other solvent besides water. Common sense would suggest a special symbiosis between the organics and water. This is pure science common sense. Even if we do not agree of the hows and whys the connection is obvious to the rational mind. 

If you look at the current science approach, in terms of life, water is not given the proper proportions of effort it deserves. Water is 70-90% of the mass of cells,  and water is small enough to be everywhere in the cell and can be shown to be essential to everything. However, it is not consider important, on its own. The main approach of modern life science is organic centric with statistics used to lump water into the organics. Even though DNA will not work without water we never show the water in textbooks, but rather lump water into the DNA. The tells us applied science rules life theory since this is not even pure.

This applied science approach is nevertheless useful. since it does save research money and can lead to innovation in the market place. A very comma set of procedures can replace the need to think. But it is not pure. It leaves out a variable that  can be shown to be critical at all levels and stages of life. Simply leave it out water and observe.

In the 1950's, it was discovered, by pure science observations; no bias, that proteins fold with exact folds. Like repeatable science experiments, protein fold the same way each time no matter who does the observing. Although this observation  has been duplicated in the lab and is common knowledge for over 60 years, there is still no statistical explanation. The main theory cannot even explain this yet is remains.

On behalf of the applied science theory, used for life, researching water and life, in a pure sciece way, is not easy. The most important affects of water occur, are dynamic and situ, and are hard to investigate. Statistic was and is still a  way to lump this together, so we do not get bogged down in the weeds pioneering the needed pure science This is done off the free market grid.

 However, I have found seams that can make things easier. Imagine an applied approach that only needs water to explain the parallel universe of the organics. Now we do it the other way around and water into the diversity of organics. But we could use one simple molecule; H2O, to simulate any organic in water since water will forma unique shell around any organic or organic surface.   Modeling becomes an order of magnitude easier,

Note: Lately my old computer gets bogged down when I visit this particular site. My commuter is a circa 2007 iMac. Today I got a warming about too much resources being use by this site, and that I should shut down the internet link to free resources. Yesterday, I could not even post since my computer froze because the RAM was fully used. May I request all ease dropping by outsiders beyond management, limit yourself. Half can do MWF and the other half TTS. I write off the top of my head and there is nothing in my computer of value.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: larens on 27/05/2020 21:31:24
In the 1950's, it was discovered, by pure science observations; no bias, that proteins fold with exact folds. Like repeatable science experiments, protein fold the same way each time no matter who does the observing. Although this observation  has been duplicated in the lab and is common knowledge for over 60 years, there is still no statistical explanation. The main theory cannot even explain this yet is remains.

This is no mystery if one assumes first that evolution selects for proteins that fold rapidly. At a deeper level chemistry is based on quasicrystalline projections from 12-D space. This is the data space of the 24-D code space of the extended binary Golay code space. Its structure group is the uniquely privileged group of finite simple groups. Why quasicrystals can form is another mystery solved by these facts.

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However, I have found seams that can make things easier. Imagine an applied approach that only needs water to explain the parallel universe of the organics. Now we do it the other way around and water into the diversity of organics. But we could use one simple molecule; H2O, to simulate any organic in water since water will forma unique shell around any organic or organic surface.   Modeling becomes an order of magnitude easier,

On the contrary modeling is easier if you do it in terms of the main phases involved. That way you are dealing with primary interactions rather than secondary interactions of water in nonaqueous phases. The three main biochemically active liquid phases of early life are water, toluene, and ASF (ammonium sulfate in formamide). The last two are residual liquids after deep freezing. All the solvents, of course, have multiple solutes.

I have been working on describing in detail the first generation ribosome, which includes a Halloysite nanotube. The precursor to the larger unit of the modern ribosome was bound to the end of this nanotube. This mechanism traveled down the  protochromosomes that had a cylindrical core protein passing through 12 bp (base pair) stem loops of RNA, These were translated either into GSGSGS type sequences by the 1 bit code ( G=guanosine -> glycine=G, C=cytodine -> serine=S) or into tetrapeptides by the 3 bp code. The insertion of an extra S giving an SSGSS seqence within a poly-GS sequence triggered the formation of the LVPR tetrapeptide (L=leucine, V=valine, P=proline, R=arginine). These sequences are found in modern protein linkers. Hexa-LVPR peptides with a poly-GS linker running the length of the protochromosome was such a more highly stabilizing core protein for the 3bp code that the intermediate 2 bp code was never filled. (P kinks the polypeptide promoting a circular conformation; R binds to phosphate in RNA.)

LV was subsequently changed to IV (I=isoleucine, which increased the attraction to toluene.) Upon decomposition of the organism IV sequences were protected from racemization. (Presumably they had been intercolated into Halloysite nanotubes serving as a storage area.) Thus there are CC meteorites with enantiomeric excesses only in I and V.  The PR sequences led to PR rich histones, the modern protein spools upon which DNA is wound. The protochromosomes had variable RNA binding energies. This was affected by molecules similar to metatetramethylferrocenium formate. The formate would bind to ribose and the positive end of arginine, reducing the binding energy to RNA. The larger part of this molecule was in the hydrophobic part of the core protein. The ribose/formate complex led to enantiomeric excesses of sugar acids in some CC meteorites.

As you can see the structure of this first generation ribosome is strongly validated by modern data. This last universal common ancestor was a eukaryote that has so far not left distinctive fossil evidence. I will expand on my reply at 24/05/2020 22:29:56, in which I mistakenly referred to the Mozambique rift (opposite side of a crustal plate). The late protoeukaryotic refuge was at the Iapetus rift, whose modern crustal location is around Iceland. Since then the area has been deeply covered in basalt so no fossils can be found. After beginning in the early Cryogenian this rift completely separated the earlier terrains of modern Scandinavia and North America just before the beginning of the Cambrian radiation of higher eukayotes.
Title: Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?
Post by: Bored chemist on 27/05/2020 21:38:24

Half can do MWF and the other half TTS.
Metal working fluid?
Married white female?
Medical Women's Federation

Text to speech?

there is nothing in my computer of value.
Clearly.